Mode 2

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Mode 2 is a theory of knowledge production, put forth in 1994 by Michael Gibbons, Camille Limoges, Helga Nowotny, Simon Schwartzman, Peter Scott and Martin Trow in their book The new production of knowledge: the dynamics of science and research in contemporary societies(Sage). Gibbons and colleagues argued that a new form of knowledge production started emerging from the mid 20th century which is context-driven, problem-focused and interdisciplinary. It involves multidisciplinary teams brought together for short periods of time to work on specific problems in the real world. Gibbons and his colleagues labelled this ‘mode 2’ knowledge production. This he and his colleagues distinguished from traditional research, which they labelled ‘mode 1', which is academic, investigator-initiated and discipline-based knowledge production. So mode 1 knowledge production is investigator-initiated and discipline-based while mode 2 is problem-focused and interdisciplinary. A very similar distinction was made by John Ziman in his book Real Science (Cambridge) between academic science and post-academic science, respectively.

Or as Limoges (1996:14-15) wrote -

We now speak of 'context-driven' research, meaning 'research carried out in a context of application, arising from the very work of problem solving and not governed by the paradigms of traditional disciplines of knowledge.

In 2001 Helga Nowotny, Peter Scott and Michael Gibbons published Rethinking science: knowledge in an age of uncertainty (Polity) in which they extend their analysis to the implications of mode 2 knowledge production for society.

While the notion of mode 2 knowledge production has attracted considerable interest, it has not been universally accepted in the terms put by Gibbons and colleagues. Etzkowitz & Leydes (2000:116) argue –

The so-called Mode 2 is not new; it is the original format of science before its academic institutionalization in the 19th century. Another question to be answered is why Mode 1 has arisen after Mode 2: the original organizational and institutional basis of science, consisting of networks and invisible colleges. Where have these ideas, of the scientist as the isolated individual and of science separated from the interests of society, come from? Mode 2 represents the material base of science, how it actually operates. Mode 1 is a construct, built upon that base in order to justify autonomy for science, especially in an earlier era when it was still a fragile institution and needed all the help it could get (references omitted).

In the same article Etzkowitz & Leydes (2000:111) introduce the notion of the triple helix of the nation state, academia and industry to explain innovation, the development of new technology and knowledge transfer. Etzkowitz & Leydes (2000:118) argue that ‘The Triple Helix overlay provides a model at the level of social structure for the explanation of Mode 2 as an historically emerging structure for the production of scientific knowledge, and its relation to Mode 1’.

Steve Fuller, in his book The Governance of Science (Chapter 5) has criticised the 'Modists' view of the history of science because they wrongly give the impression that mode 1 dates back to seventeenth-century Scientific Revolution whereas mode 2 is traced to the end of either World War II or the cold war, whereas in fact the two modes were institutionalized only within a generation of each other (the third and the fourth quaters of the nineteenth century, respectively). Fuller claims that the Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes in Germany, jointly funded by the state, the industry and the universities, predated today's "triple helix" institutions by an entire century.

Some writers have invented a mode 3 knowledge, which is mostly used to refer to emotional knowledge or social knowledge. But these writers miss the whole point of Gibbons et al which was not to catalogue types of knowledge but to describe types of knowledge production or research.

[edit] References

Michael Gibbons, Camille Limoges, Helga Nowotny, Simon Schwartzman, Peter Scott and Martin Trow

• Etzkowitz, Henry & Leydes, Loet (2000) The dynamics of innovation: from National Systems and ‘‘Mode 2’’ to a Triple Helix of university–industry–government relations, Research Policy, vol 29, pp 109–123.

• Fuller, Steve (2000). The Governance of Science. Buckingham: Open University Press. ISBN 0335202349.

• Gibbons, Michael, Camille Limoges, Helga Nowotny, Simon Schwartzman, Peter Scott, & Martin Trow (1994). The new production of knowledge: the dynamics of science and research in contemporary societies. London: Sage. ISBN 0803977948.

• Limoges, Camille (1996). L’université à la croisée des chemins : une mission à affirmer, une gestion à réformer. Quebec: Actes du colloque ACFAS.CSE.CST, Gouvernement du Québec Ministère de l'Éducation.

• Nowotny, Helga, Peter Scott & Michael Gibbons (2001). Rethinking science: knowledge in an age of uncertainty. Cambridge: Polity. ISBN 0745626076.

• Ziman, John (2000). Real Science. What it is, and what it means.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521893100.