ABSTRACT
This chapter examines a crucial question that is to what extent hypocrisy can be avoided through continuous self-reflection, and the role of academic research in opening up critical distance from the political processes in a hectic present, as a basis for the self-reflection. Academic research, in particular research in the human and social sciences, is a crucial dimension of value production in the public sphere. The triple helix model neglects critical distance and distribution of labour between the academic and the political. The Lisbon process was the flagship of the European Union (EU) and its triple helix philosophy. The insight is widespread that the triple helix will not take us to the golden land envisaged by the kind of intrinsic force imagined in the Lisbon agenda. Against the backdrop of the critical assessment of the value-producing EU-financed academic research in social sciences and humanities, the question is what the new European Research Council (ERC) can bring.
