مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري - ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE IN FIELD OF SCIENCE: A SOCIO- ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF UNIVERSITY-INDUSTRY COOPERATION AND INNOVATION

Abstract :

Universities used to reach a limited number of people in their early years until their role in development was found out soon after the Second World War. Afterwards, universities recruited more students and massified and new universities were established in different regions of the country. Since Council of Higher Education (YÖK) stepped into high education field as a prominent actor in 1982, a new process started both for the field of higher education and organizational formation of universities and a centralized administration for the universities was decided. In 1984 first private university was opened and particularly in 1992 and 2005 new universities were established in large numbers and the number of public and private universities increased to 193. Since their establishment, organizational form of universities have been subjected to fundamental changes due to their aim to decrease regional difference and keep up with international coordination standards. Entrepreneur University model since the 1950s rise in importance with transition to post-fordist production, while universities in all over the World directed their education and research mission to the knowledge production for practical resolution for problems and Turkish universities were part of this process. Currently, universities go far beyond offering the knowledge they produced to the service of industry. They collaborate with other institutions in production of technology and transferring this technology and introduce directly concrete outcomes beyond the knowledge itself, so the notion of innovation gains importance in this process. Drawing from the development of universities in Turkey, this study examines the socio-economic substructure of the process in which the innovation has become a significant dynamic influencing the structure of organizations. In discussions, universities, YÖK and TUBİTAK will be taken as actors in the field of higher education, universities which are the organizational form of science production will be mainly focused. The questions about the social and economic changes that bring in innovation, how knowledge production and organization of this production in universities are affected by these changes will be discussed.