Of all the authors I have studied over the course of my PhD studies in sociology and my post-doctoral work, Pierre Bourdieu is by far the one who has exerted the strongest influence on my sociological approach and my research. I first experienced working with Bourdieu’s conceptual tools when I used his concept of “field” to understand the relations between the political and economic spheres and knowledge production in two academic disciplines—sociology and economics. At the time, little did I know that in order to properly understand the concept of field, one also had to have mastered the other concepts developed by Bourdieu (including those of “habitus,” “species of capital,” “symbolic capital” and “symbolic domination”). However, I rapidly realised that the systemic nature of Bourdieu’s social theory and the tight interweaving of its ensuing concepts require a complete understanding of the whole in order to fully grasp the scope of the constituent parts. In the following paragraphs, I shall describe how Bourdieu’s approach influenced my research, and how it led me to construct critiques of certain models that attempt to explain the transformations seen in university knowledge production over the past few decades.

Applying the concept of field to the study of sociology and economics professors’ research practices seemed to me to be a particularly productive way of proceeding. By considering the two disciplines as relatively autonomous spheres of activity, each operating according to its own logic, I was able to shed light on their respective specific characters, as well as on the variety of knowledge production modes that distinguish them—especially in sociology, where such modes are extremely varied indeed (Albert, 1999, 2002; Albert and Bernard , 2000). I was also well positioned to demonstrate how the definition of “excellence” (or “scientific legitimacy,” to use Bourdieu’s terminology) differs according to discipline, and how there were also significant variations in the strategies employed by professors to attain that “excellence.” In economics, academics acquire scientific legitimacy exclusively by publishing work in internationally renowned, peer-reviewed journals (Canadian-based journals are deemed less prestigious). In sociology, the fragmentation of the discipline into various specializations and paradigms (Abbott, 2001; Collins, 1986; Stinchcombe, 1994) has afforded professors a wider range of production types with the potential to confer scientific legitimacy: books, book chapters, articles in peer-reviewed journals, government reports, and so on.

As I progressed in the analysis of my results, I began to notice that they were running counter to three prominent models applied to the study of knowledge production and transmission in university and government settings: the New Production of Knowledge, or NPK (Gibbons et al., 1994; Nowotny et al., 2001); the Triple Helix, or TH (Etzkowitz, 1996, 1998; Etzkowitz et al., 2000; Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff, 2000); and the System of Innovation Approach, or SIA (Cooke, 1998; de la Mothe and Paquet, 1998; Edquist, 1997; Lundvall and Borras, 1998; Morgan and Nauwelaers, 1999; OECD, 1999).

Although these three models are differentiated by certain particularities, they do hold a common view of the transformation of academic research as a uniform, linear process. They posit that there is, on the one hand, an “old” way of doing research (which Gibbons et al. refer to as “Mode 1”) and, on the other, a “new” way (or “Mode 2”). The “old” way could be characterised by the: 1) assignment of a knowledge-advancement objective to the research activity; 2) production of knowledge grounded in disciplinary traditions; 3) defence of the ascendancy of the peer-review process over heteronomous modes of evaluation; and 4) acknowledgement of the distinction between basic research and research aimed at solving problems. According to the NPK, TH and SIA models, all university research—without distinction as to area, discipline or sub-discipline—is now fully engaged in a process of change. University research, proponents of these models claim, is now focussed on responding to the needs of corporations and public organizations, is interdisciplinary, and has the ultimate aim of technological, social and organizational innovation.

The results of my research, as well as those of recent studies conducted in Europe and the United States (Hakala and Ylijoki, 2001; Hicks and Katz, 1996; Ylijoki, 2000; Shinn, 2000; Slaughter and Leslie, 1997) suggest that the metamorphoses currently at work in academic research are more complex than can be explained by these three models. Knowledge production is undergoing transformations, but those transformations vary considerably, according to areas of research, disciplines and institutions. While for certain disciplines, interdisciplinarity constitutes an opportunity to enrich their theoretical and empirical foundations via new questionings, in other disciplines it is viewed as a source of compromise with “semi-scientific” knowledge [1] Some researchers favour the establishment of co-operative links with governments and private enterprise, but others—citing the autonomy of the university as an institution—tend to shy away from such networking. Lastly, although in certain disciplines and subdisciplines, types of production destined for non-university stakeholders are taken into account in the evaluation of professors, other knowledge sectors lend only negligible importance to such types of production.

The deviation between the results of my research and the image of “new science” conveyed by the NPK, TH and SIA models led me to formulate three basic questions: 1) How is it that these models—most notably the NPK and the SIA—exert such an overriding influence on governments’ and granting agencies’ development of their scientific policies and strategic orientations? 2) Since they stem essentially from the fields of economics, business administration and, to a lesser extent, political science, are these models not imparting a particular vision of society, i.e., an “economicist” vision? and 3) Is the scientific objectivity conferred on these models by society in fact obscuring their ultimate aim, i.e., production of knowledge subject to the demands of economic competitiveness (this is especially true in the case of the SIA)?

Where my initial research, based on Bourdieu’s concept of field, sought to understand changes in research practices in two academic disciplines, my current work attempts to understand to what degree certain of the social sciences may be contributing to the construction of social inequalities. More specifically, by basing my study on Bourdieu’s conceptualization of culture and his concept of symbolic domination, I hope to shed light on how the worldviews propounded by the SIA and NPK models contribute to the legitimization of the market economy as a mode of economic resource allocation. To do so, it will be necessary for me to understand the processes that have enabled these two models to acquire symbolic power sufficient to influence governments and granting agencies’ conceptions of science and economic development. I shall also endeavour to demonstrate that the arbitrary nature of the worldview these models advocate goes unnoticed because of their presumed scientific neutrality—the fact that this arbitrariness is non-explicit has the effect of enhancing the political efficacy of these models. In that sense, the research upon which I am embarking may be viewed as an attempt to understand how the social sciences can bring scientific legitimacy to actions whose ultimate aims are patently unscientific.

With regard to the present debate about the role of universities in society, my current research will contribute to clarifying the processes through which universities are led to integrate themselves into national systems of innovation [2], in other words, to mobilize their intellectual and material resources for the benefit of private enterprise and to meet government needs. Furthermore, by pursuing the study of the power relationships between concurrent conceptions of scientific excellence (and their corresponding evaluation criteria), my work will be able to demonstrate to what degree pressures favouring the instrumentalization of knowledge have—or have not—modified professors’ research practices. For example, to what degree would targeted research (Mode 2) predominate, in terms of volume and/or symbolic capital, over non-targeted research (Mode 1), now and in the future? Empirical knowledge of the situation in various disciplines is necessary in order to qualify both the alarmist discourse of professors who are proclaiming the end of academic freedom and to counter those strategies for the uniformization of university research that are deployed by economic and political powers.

Notes

¹ One of the economists interviewed as part of my research asserted that sociology is not a science because it has not adopted the evaluation criteria of the natural sciences. Other economists pointed out that grants awarded through interdisciplinary competitions were less prestigious than those obtained through competitions reserved for economics, as their juries did not possess all of the competencies required to conduct a proper review.

² This is the terminology utilized in government publications and in works by academics who frequent government circles.

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