ABSTRACT
We might summarise the argument so far as follows. Universities are open systems. They are discrete entities, capable of planning their actions and coordinating WKHLULQWHUQDOFRPSRQHQWSDUWV$WWKHVDPHWLPHWKH\KDYHÀXLGDQGSHUPHDEOH boundaries across which they interact with a wide range of external agencies and groups (Chapter 18). 0RVWRIWKHVHLQWHUDFWLRQVFDQEHFODVVL¿HGDVWHDFKLQJUHVHDUFKRUDGPLQLVWUD-
tion (Chapter 20). A particular tension exists across all three of these domains (in administration because it must service the other two). We might think of this as a tension between stability and change, and between certainty and speculation. It is fuelled by, on the one hand, the imperative to archive, protect, apply and bequeath existing knowledge and, on the other hand, the imperative to challenge that knowledge, to break through into unexplored territory, to go beyond problem VROYLQJLQWRFRPSUHKHQVLYHSUREOHPUHGH¿QLWLRQ7KHµEUHDNWKURXJK¶KDVDOZD\V been the gold standard of research. It is breakthroughs that win Nobel Prizes and shift paradigms. In the present, however, and as we have seen, there is an expectation that everyone will face new, presently unimaginable circumstances in their lifetimes with which, in one way or another and for better or worse, they will learn to deal. This means that the tension between the known and the unknown is just as strong in teaching – particularly university teaching – as it is in research. We have sought to capture this tension with our rough and ready distinction between the real world and ivory tower views of what a university is for (Chapter 1). Particular people, at particular times and places, may want the answer to be one or the other; but it is inescapably both.
