ABSTRACT
In the domain of science, research and (more generally) knowledge production a revolution is under way. The regularities of academic disciplines are dissolving; the boundaries of scientific communities, creators and guardians of these disciplines, are being penetrated by-and extended to include-new actors; even the fundamental methodologies and epistemologies of knowledge have been challenged. This first revolution has been described as a shift from Mode 1 science —linear or, at any rate, cumulative, rooted in theory or, at any rate, fundamental descriptions of the natural and social worlds-to Mode 2 knowledge productiontrangressive, intensely reflexive, rooted in applications (and, more radically still, ‘implications’) (Gibbons et al., 1994).
