The role of the university in the knowledge society: ethical perspectives on academic research in the age of corporate science

• Author: Maria Cernat
• Position: Lecturer, Ph.D, Journalism, Communication and Public Relations Faculty, 'Spiru Haret' University, Bucharest
• Pages: 293-302

Maria Cernat

293

LESIJ NO. XVIII, VOL. 1/2011

THE ROLE OF THE UNIVERSITY IN THE KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY:

ETHICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACADEMIC RESEARCH

IN THE AGE OF CORPORATE SCIENCE

Maria CERNAT∗

Abstract

Knowledge society lies on the ruins of national culture that thought people to function in a

single universal form of science. This type of society is tightly related to a post-national

multicultural world that nourishes the erosion of classical (Kantian and Humboldian) cultural a nd

scientific foundations of the university. We are now witnessing it’s transformation into a

“multiversity” dominated by the competitive international academic market for students and

scholars and “commodified” knowledge. The fiscal crisis of publicly financed universities forced

them to constantly pursue other forms of income, the industry being the most obvious solution. In

the place of universities of reason and culture the drastic decrease of public funding generated the

commercialization of the universities. This is because there is an “asymmetric convergence”:

while universities are adopting corporate values and principles the industry itself is not influenced

by the academic values and norms. The pursuit of knowledge for mere intellectual curiosity and

also the conception of the knowledge as a public good have been abandoned in favor of applied

research serving corporate interests. The resulting academic capitalism is far from being the best

solution to budget cuts and this study is trying to highlight some of advantages but also the most

important shortcomings of this present trend in our universities.

Keywords: knowledge society, commodified knowledge, academic capitalism, corporate

interests, research limitations

Introduction

During the last decade one of the most heated debates regarding academic freedom took

place in USA. It was caused by an extremely controversial agreement signed between two

important institutions: a famous land-grand university and the biggest pharmaceutical and

biotechnological corporation. The fierce debate remained known as the Berkeley-Novartis

Controversy. I chose this very interesting chapter in the industry-university relation as a starting

point of my research as a result of a peculiar situation regarding the way this controversy was

reflected in the mainstream press. When theorists made an inquiry on the most debated themes in

mainstream journals, the general ethics issues came in the fourth place after corporate control,

general research and economic concerns themes. It is not my intention to reshape the current

interpretations of this particular event but to prove that this controversy is also important on a

different level. I consider that the Berkeley-Novartis Agreement epitomizes a very controversial

relation between corporations and universities and I think this should be the starting point for

further analyzing the ethical challenges the university has to address in the present knowledge

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∗ Lecturer, Ph.D, Journalism, Communication and Public Relations Faculty, “Spiru Haret” University, Bucharest (e-

mail: macernat@gmail.com).