ABSTRACT
In contrast to days gone by, in the coming years universities will have to justify their existence like never before. Until recently, students, lecturers and university administrators were able to assume that the university would play an authoritative and recognized role in society. For many centuries, transferring knowledge was the university’s most important task, and the Enlightenment confirmed the university’s independence by enshrining the cultural-historical importance of knowledge; that is, knowledge for knowledge’s sake. Von Humboldt’s ideas placed the university in a far-away ivory tower that for two centuries proved an impregnable fortress – one that was also far from all the hustle and bustle, since the university, in many respects, existed at quite a distance from broader social discourse. And this remained the case until long after the Second World War, when, under pressure from democratization and the mass influx of students that came with this, the university gradually left the ivory tower that had long protected it.
