Universities in the Knowledge Society

Abstract

Within the knowledge society framework, higher education has become a driving factor for democratizing and rising equality in societies and consequently stimulating economic development (Panitsidou et al., Procedia Soc & Behav Sci, 46: 548-553, 2012). In Portugal, as elsewhere, higher education institutions (HEI) were expected to play a key role within the changing dynamics in the orientation of knowledge production and dissemination. Research and the national scientific system are closely connected to the higher education system, with knowledge production being mostly concentrated in universities, especially in public ones. In this context, HEIs are considered as a privileged locus of change framed by the knowledge society providing the new epistemological, ontological, and methodological logics as well as legitimacy for a new "political economy" of knowledge. However, this chapter has a double purpose. On the one hand, it intends to present an overview of the Portuguese higher education system and its relation to the research and innovation system. On the other hand, the paper seeks to analyze the contemporary conceptions of the "knowledge-based society" in the Portuguese state policies and HEI narratives, as well as the expected role assigned to academics in the new knowledge production, dissemination, and transfer systems.