ABSTRACT
The object of our investigation in this chapter, the concept of the service university, has been the subject of considerable international discussion (see, for example, Cummings 1995, 1998, Tudiver 1999, Tjeldvoll 2000). While the service university is not a new phenomenon (Roszak was already attacking the idea in his 1968 essay on ‘The delinquent academy’), it has received fresh attention in the context of the expansion of higher education across the world, the demand for universities to generate funding from sources other than government grant, and policies aimed at extracting economic benefit from the research, teaching and ‘intellectual property’ locked in higher education institutions. Under new liberal economic policies, higher education institutions have been placed under market requirements in which their ‘offer’ to society is expected to be demand-rather than supply-driven and their relationship to their ‘customers’ (formerly known as students) based on a service culture.
