Universities, innovation and development processes in the changing global economy

Universities are undergoing a process of remaking all over the world, including developing countries. The importance of universities for development purposes is nowadays consensual; how to direct universities reforms to attain developmental goals remains, though, highly controversial. The paper focuses on the ongoing debate about reforms in the public university in Uruguay. The idea of a Developmental University will be put forward, pointing to the notion of building a learning nation - a strategy for the South in order to avoid that the emergence of the knowledge society in the North fosters a new international division of labour that consolidates underdevelopment.

1.– Remaking universities:an ongoing global process

Universities have been changing greatly during the two last decades all over the world. During the first half of the 1990s a first recognition of the move towards something new began to be analyzed and theorized. The research system in transition [1], triple helix [2], model-mode2 [3], from CUDOS to PLACE [4], the changing dynamics of research groups [5], the new economics of science [6], the evaluative state [7]: these and other approaches were proposed to grasp the nature and extent of the perceived changes.