The Transformation of Universities in Response to the Imperatives of a Knowledge Society

Industrialisation in the late nineteenth century gave birth to the modern Humboldtian university in the West that combined scientific research and teaching. Over the past two decades, the emergence of a new knowledge economy and society has given rise to a new model of the ‘entrepreneurial’ university that seeks to re-imagine it as both the economic engine of a new knowledge-based economy and the engine of a more progressive, equitable, and sustainable society. This chapter reviews the emerging literature on the knowledge society, the knowledge-based economy, and its impact on the mission of higher education and the nature and prospects of the academic profession. It sets the conceptual stage for the Academic Profession in the Knowledge-Based Society (APIKS) project that seeks to document the changing profiles, roles, careers, and prospects of the academic profession—the knowledge workers and innovators of the new order.