Michael Gibbons & Camille Limoges 
The New Production of Knowledge 
The Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies

In this provocative and broad-ranging work, the authors argue that the ways in which knowledge – scientific, social and cultural – is produced are undergoing fundamental changes at the end of the twentieth century. They claim that these changes mark a distinct shift into a new mode of knowledge production which is replacing or reforming established institutions, disciplines, practices and policies.

Identifying features of the new mode of knowledge production – reflexivity, transdisciplinarity, heterogeneity – the authors show how these features connect with the changing role of knowledge in social relations. While the knowledge produced by research and development in science and technology is accorded central concern, the authors also outline the changing dimensions of social scientific and humanities knowledge and the relations between the production of knowledge and its dissemination through education.

Table of Content

Evolution of Knowledge Production

The Marketability and Commercialisation of Knowledge

Massification of Research and Education

The Case of the Humanities

Competitiveness, Collaboration and Globalisation

Reconfiguring Institutions

Towards Managing Socially Distributed Knowledge

About the author

Trow was born in New York on June 21, 1926, and attended primary and secondary schools in New York City. He served in the U.S. Navy for three years, separating with officer rank, before matriculating at the Stevens Institute of Technology in 1947. He practiced briefly as a mechanical engineer before entering Columbia University as a graduate student in sociology in 1948.