Quality Control and Validation Boundaries in a Triple Helix of University-Industry-Government: 'Mode 2' and the Future of University Research

TL;DR

This paper explores how quality control in scientific research is evolving within the Triple Helix model of university-industry-government relations, emphasizing the shift from traditional institutional boundaries to dynamic communication-based validation boundaries.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of validation boundaries in Mode 2 knowledge production, highlighting changes in quality control criteria at the interfaces of institutional boundaries.

Findings

Validation boundaries differ from traditional institutional quality controls.

Mode 2 emphasizes reflexive and dynamic quality assessment.

Changes impact future university research practices.

Abstract

How is quality control organized in the new "Mode 2" of the production of scientific knowledge? When institutional boundaries are increasingly blurred in a Triple Helix of University-Industry-Government relations, criteria for quality control in the production of scientific knowledge can be expected to change at the interfaces. The categorization in terms of two modes of knowledge production was introduced by Gibbons et al. (1994) in order to describe changes in the networks of scientific communications (funding patterns, research configurations, styles of knowledge management, etc.). These changes were mainly specified as institutional parameters in order to deal with the subjects of R&D management and S&T policies, that is, ex ante (Spiegel-Ring 1973 Van den Daele et al. 1979). We focus on the 'validation boundaries' emerging from the differences between Mode 1 and Mode 2 that is, on the criteria for quality control that can analytically and reflexively be brought to the fore ex post. The shift from an institutional frame of reference to a focus on the dynamics of communications enables us to clarify several problems in the discussion of the future of university research.