Measuring and Funding the ‘Third Mission’: The UK Policy Debate

Over the past decade, the social and economic role of universities has been the object of intensive reassessment. Many academic studies have addressed the linkage between university activities, particularly university-based research, and economic performance and societal needs. In their often-cited book, The New Production of Knowledge, Gibbons et al. (1994) argued that the model in which knowledge is generated within self-contained disciplines and away from the social and economic context of application is breaking down. The new emerging model of knowledge production is more fluid and dispersed. The traditional distinction between academic and non-academic work becomes blurred. Universities interact with other knowledge producers and carry out research closer to the context of application.