New missions for universities in the era of innovation: European and global perspectives for excellence and sustainability

Introduction

The current paper begins examining Higher Education recent « revolution» in the context of deepen individualism and the quest for security, century-old trends regarding political anthropology and political philosophy. (Müller, 2008, 2011).

The nature but also the role of universities has changed a lot. Dramatic growth of Higher Education is re-framed since the impact of powerful organizational and managerial engineering, techno-industrial developments, and the emergence of new techno-sciences. In that perspective, the importance of responsible and sustainable forms of development and innovation is emphasized, highlighting the need for a strong linkage between techno-scientific and engineering sciences and social sciences and humanities.

In a knowledge production perspective, the main contemporary revolution is the emergence of Innovation doctrines and realities, seen because of the entanglement of Higher Education production (Education, research, service to society/economy), industry and governments (the so-called «triple helix»). As one knows, innovation became the contemporary pervasive political-economy doctrine in all countries during the last Half-century. (Ruano-Borbalan, 2023) Its impact on public policies and economic environments, but even administrations and civil society (through both techno-scientific and «social » innovation) is massive. Regarding Higher Education landscape, it changed the nature of dominant regime of Knowledge production. Since the end of the twentieth century this regime, inaugurated in the Twenties or thirties of the Twentieth century and became triumphant in the USA after second World War was dominated by fundamental research and progressively «big science». This regime didn’t completely disappeared, as some big national or international science programs still shows (astrophysics or bio-genetics for example) but since the seventies, one see the emergence and nowadays the complete victory of a «strategic research» paradigm, rooted on economics or political «goals» (United Nations) or «challenges» (European Commission). Current Regime or knowledge production is using a unavoidable administrative orientation (evidence based) everywhere expressed as necessity to rationalize, innovate and produce useful Knowledge.

The consequence of this big paradigmatic change is quite clear for Higher Education institutions, when examining real situations. First and primarily Higher Education follows governments decisions to be part of the public policies orientations, such as developing economy and competing internationally, etc. In that perspective, the horizon for Higher Education institutions is to become (or to be oriented to) so-called «entrepreneurial Universities», as institutions, part of local, national and global innovative «ecosystems». Meanwhile, Universities are bound to be « at the service» of their clients, that is students and their families as customers, industrial firms to provide useful and competitive knowledge. This drove to definition and development of a supposed “Third Mission” of Universities: Entrepreneurial Engagement or lifelong learning and Societal Impact, and public understanding of sciences. (Compagnucci & Spigarelli, 2020).

Nowadays, policies orientations are quite aligned worldwide, and National transformative programs such the Excellence Initiatives in Germany and France aim at promoting cutting-edge research and international visibility. The recent European Excellence Initiative, outlines those objectives, including a balanced circulation of talents, reinforcing the role of higher education institutions in innovation ecosystems, and promoting gender equality and inclusiveness is an emblematic attempt to face all « challenges» and stakes: from international competition between USA, Chines, Asians other innovation systems, to societal or industrial requirements.

Higher education in changing times

The 21st century has witnessed unprecedented challenges and transformations that have reshaped the priorities and missions of universities worldwide. (Ruano-Borbalan, 2022) Massification of higher education is the most visible of those challenges, as one knows. But not the only one, considering its role on values transformations and on techno-industrial innovation. However, a numerous literature is analyzing massification, a global phenomenon, with a significant increase in student populations worldwide. (Altbachs & Salmi, 2022) According to UNESCO talking about 2023 situation: «Higher education has changed dramatically over the past decades with increasing enrolment, student mobility, diversity of provision, research dynamics and technology. Some 235 million students are enrolled in universities around the world – a number that has more than doubled in the last 20 years and is set to expand. (Unesco, 2023).

Currently, there are more than 18,000 universities globally (India, Malaysia, United states and China largely leading). Private sector enrollment, constituting approximately 30%, is growing faster than the public sector, essentially in emergent countries, with private higher education institutions specializing in engineering, innovation, and business subjects experiencing unprecedented growth. (International Association of Universities, 2023).

One of spectacular modifications that happened in last decades is the strengthening weight of new developed countries Higher Education/knowledge production systems. China’s substantial presence in global academic output is for example undeniable. The country has not only produced 24.6% of all papers published worldwide but has also exhibited its presence in the realm of highly cited publications, boasting nearly 30% of the top 10% but around 1% most-cited works. Notably, China has surpassed the U.S. by a margin of 8.5 percentage points across these categories.

Another most striking - and least noted - aspects of the global growth and polarization of higher education is the widespread growth of vocational programs, in both the private and public sectors, particularly at the initial higher education stage. This growth is characterized by the proliferation of institutes of technology and basic business schools. Within an interconnected process of growth and competition for performance, excellence, and innovation, they are giving rise to new knowledge transfer systems. (Ruano-Borbalan, 2019).

If one wants to grasp evolutions in one glimpse, lt can be said that Higher education sector is characterized since a few decades by both «unification» and «polarization». Prestigious research universities, essentially American and European (UK) and nowadays some Asian one, dominate the production of norms and values, while vocational programs and institutes of technology or business schools, oriented by a similar conception of «education and research for innovation», contribute to polarization. The higher education landscape consists of prestigious research universities and a massive ecosystem of institutions focused on useful knowledge production. (Halasz and Ruano-Borbalan, 2022).

Almost everywhere, mainly driven by Private sector, undergoing transformation is marked by rising costs, new financing models, innovation-based programs, entrepreneurship curricula, and increased managerialism. Administrative models (new public management policies) are increasingly centralized, with faculty having less influence, and students primarily viewed as consumers and less as «learners». Simultaneously, there is a surge in management and engineering schools.

If one look comprehensively, some common trends are ongoing. First, Higher education, as both education and research production system are conceived by governments and international institutions as a highly useful instrument to develop technological innovation and economic growth, through a huge process of competitive rationalization. (Croucher et al., 2023).

Those impressive trends to unified highly competitive systems primarily oriented to enhance « innovation» and nowadays « innovation for sustainable development» have been strengthened under pressure New Public Management practices and economic and doctrines (Popp-Berman, 2022). There is a growing trend towards viewing it as a private good.

From the point of view of public authorities, at local, national, and international levels, the question of Higher education, primarily relationship between science, technology, industrial innovation, and society, has become an essential part of a political requirement.

Specific Higher education and research policies and programs are continuously promoted for industrial and techno-scientific innovation, including increasingly preoccupations and objectives of Responsible Research and Innovation – RRI-.

The major issue remains the role of research and techno-science in economic growth, employment, social and political cohesion, international strategic competition, etc. and governments or public administrations are balancing on contradictory « challenges»: facing the tensions, often unsolvable, between the various issues: economic growth, sustainable development, knowledge, citizen participation, etc.

A shift in dominant regime of knowledge production

To sum up the multiple transformations of Higher Education and its links to industry, administration & management or society, one can assume, according to Science and technologies studies framing, the development of a new dominant « Regime of Knowledge production» characterized by standardization, entrepreneurial orientations and « excellence» policies (i.e., fierce competition) of production units (Universities; research units; national systems of innovation). (Pestre, 2003) Before characterizing the new dominant regime, one must go back to XXth century (very differentiated) ways of producing knowledge and science discourses, to understand the width and major characterizations of successive regimes: from the Thirties to the mid-seventies in Europe can be characterized with the title of the Vanevar Bush’s report in 1945 in the USA (Science, the endless frontier). In this period, the dominant regime of science and knowledge production was not only embedded in universities in countries such in France, Soviet Union where Separated institutions like academies or scientific National research center were prominent. This regime nevertheless was dominated by fundamental research and its agendas. To understand this twentieth dominant regime of knowledge production, one must remind the role of successive world wars, and then more likely the cold war and the huge investments steps for financing and managing techno-science production. (Oreskes, Krige).

In Europe and the United States, for example, the First World War acted as a major catalyst in strengthening links between various players such as scientists, economists, and state administrations. An eloquent example of this dynamic is the report submitted in 1919 by Étienne Clémentel, French Minister of Commerce and Industry since 1915, to the President of the Council. This report summarized a doctrine rather than a widespread practice at the time, presenting machinismo as the unsurpassable horizon of the rational economy, a panacea for overcoming present and future challenges. The report emphasized that, in a modernized factory, workers could achieve optimum output thanks to the advanced machinery created by scientific elites and installed by daring entrepreneurs.

This perspective was based on general considerations, blending aspirations for efficiency with political and moral reflections. Such a vision developed under the aegis of practices and doctrines of rationalization and standardization coming from the world of engineers (Fayol, Taylor, Hoover, etc.), and the importance henceforth accorded to the social division of labor and the scientific organization of industrial production in this mechanized and “harmonious” vision. (Ruano-Borbalan, 2017).

The industrial and military policies of the interwar years in Europe and the United States clearly emphasized the need for an alliance between politics, science, and industry, stressing that scientists and industrialists could no longer ignore each other after the contact established during the war. The programs defined aimed to mobilize all energies - human, industrial, mining and fossil - to achieve ambitious goals.

The global industrial history of the inter-war years and the Second World War brought these perspectives up to date, particularly in the USA, Europe, and Japan. The Second World War accelerated this dynamic, developing considerably during the Cold War, giving rise in the USA, the Soviet Union and France to what the President of the United States called in 1958 a “military-industrial complex”. This “industrial-scientific regime”, characterized by converging interests, was crucial to the development of technoscience, which became, over the course of the 20th century and more particularly from the 30s to the 50s of the previous century, the regime of knowledge and economic innovation common to industrial societies.

From then on, throughout the world during the Cold War, for example, in a whole range of scientific sectors and academic disciplines, military orders and framing transformed science and technology. Scientists had to adapt to a regime of knowledge production that was much more project- and team-oriented than before, subject to bureaucracy and national security restrictions. On the other hand, this adaptation has been accompanied by considerable opportunities. With increased budgets, scientists were able to create new spaces to do whatever they wanted, including basic research, within the limits imposed by their funding agencies and administrators. In both autocratic and democratic states, the experimental techniques and technologies made available by public funds were sufficiently mobile to satisfy both the aspirations of the inquisitive mind and those of the military or political sponsor. As a result, and this is not the least of the paradoxes, during the 50’s and 70’s, the pressure of military-industrial or directly political tutelage did not prevent the development of areas of free applied and fundamental research. However, research, including university research, became increasingly dependent on external funding and constraints, with specific objectives linked to national security, national identity and, increasingly, economic development. It was precisely this latter dependence on economic development, which gradually became more and more direct subservience, that was to form the focal point of the subsequent transformation of the dominant regime of knowledge production: with the development of the doctrine of innovation and globalization, the university gradually became a “market engine”, in the words of sociologist Elisabeth Popp-Bermann-(Popp-Bermann, 2012).

This period of big projects involving hundreds of thousands of scientists, engineers, administrative and logistical employees, industries We all know the importance of the «Manhattan project» developing nuclear bomb and triggered further nuclear competition, the French science orientation for developing it’s own nuclear capacity or the United Kingdom « Polaris project» and obviously the space conquest competition between Soviet Union and the USA, emblematic of the « endless frontier » regime of Knowledge production, fundamentally characterized by a doctrine, if not always a reality -until the middle of the sixties- of strict distances between fundamental science and applied technoscience and R&D.

Two main political/economic transformations have strengthened the emergence of a new and very different regime of (regulation and production of knowledge. First, occurred through the economical re-emergence of the two main defeated countries during the second world war, followed by the progressive development of Asia’s dragons and European economies, a fierce economical competition within developed world, and emergent economies. This process began during the sixties and threatened the dominant western economies of the USA and in a lower extent UK one. As one Knows, this drove, framed by a « neo-liberal » view of state intervention and international trade regulation, to a doctrinal and voluntarist open process of globalization during the seventies and eighties onward. The second huge transformations have obviously been the collapse of the Soviet Union, that occurred in the eighties and the nineties, and literally blasted the world balance of geo-strategic power. The dramatic weakening of military global competition, and the subsequent dominant orientation of science on military competition purposes, which remained in many ways, had so been challenged by new preoccupations, focused on entrepreneurship, economical competition, consumption, and trade. Progressively for example, the dominant US and Western economies faced two converging realities: on was the emergence of a consuming middle class willing to access to good and cheaper products, and the technoscience progress (digitalization primarily) that allowed the transformation of global industrial productive system through decoupling conception, production, and commercialization. Those technoscientific possibilities and the standardization/reduction of custom taxes on international trade has been clearly the conditions of the development of emerging industrial nations, then included in the international division of production system, extended in large and remote network from western or Japanese centers of conception, to Asian or European peripherical production centers, to western European and American consumption markets. Obviously, the processes evoked were dynamic, differentiated and complexes but in all cases linked with strong public policies and private actions for developing « knowledge economy» and «Knowledge society».

The brand new «strategic knowledge» production regime: In innovation we trust !

However, the result is clear: since the eighties and nineties onward, the very nature of the dominant knowledge production system shifted progressively, but quickly, from the «endless frontier» justifications to new orientations and realities, focused on «innovation» and «strategic knowledge», conceived as useful for economy or society globally and specifically, for enterprises and industry development, or nowadays for «responsible» innovation and for «sustainable development».

Placed in a broad historical perspective, this emphasis on industrial development was by no means self-evident. Admittedly, the doctrines or terms of progress in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the “scientific and technical revolution” used mainly in the Soviet vision, accompanied the historical process of growth that had been underway since the Enlightenment and the first Industrial Revolution. (Freeman and Louçã (2001) But for religious, political, and cultural reasons, “innovation” has long been seen as socially or politically negative, and of little interest in economic doctrine. (Godin, 2017).

Surprisingly enough, the rather negative value of innovation was transformed after the Second World War -in a very short time- into a positive value: then recently ultra-positive. Innovation became a hegemonic doctrine at the end of the Cold War. This planetary generalization of innovation (both as a positive discourse and as multiple practices) was affirmed at the same time as the acceleration of international competition and economic growth, and through scientific or knowledge development. (Popp-Bermann, 2013) In the United States and in the main Western industrial countries of the time, innovation emerged as the necessary means of development for a technological and globalized world.

The valorization of innovation processes, becoming a kind of general and “ubiquitous” discourse, had multiple origins. Initially seen as an accompaniment to industrial development policies after the Second World War, these discourses were in part the entrepreneurial and then academic declensions of global political visions, valorizing the entrepreneurial spirit and economic liberalism, first in the USA and the UK under the administrations of President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the UK. (Miles et al., 2007) One of the major components of these policies was and remains the replacement of social conceptions in terms of equality or equity by economic conceptions based on “efficiency”, following supposedly objective and scientific economic doctrines and theories. (Popp-Bermann, 2022) This is also the “cultural” part of the “global corporate social order”, the global vision of the world shared by all political governance, production and training/education bodies that promote industrial development and economic growth, according to the “social theory of cognitive evolution” current. (Adler, 2019).

These discourses and conceptions of valuing innovation have ended up becoming widespread even within the world’s leading higher education and education systems (Ruano-Borbalan, 2019) Although still dominated by venerable institutions in the USA and Western Europe (mainly the UK and Northern Europe), the higher education sector has been transposed on a global scale through processes of imitation and replication, and under the effect of a convergence of public policies and the demands of students and families. The emergence of systems as massive as those in China and India, for example, has been and continues to be a major factor in the standardization and unification in societies and economies, under the effect of widespread competition/imitation, in which technological possibilities (digitization) or managerial and organizational innovations (evaluation, quality, etc.) play a major role.

Beyond the rhetoric and doctrines designed to promote all forms of innovation (social, industrial, etc.), innovation is a set of practices and processes, deployed on different scales. The most widespread form of innovation today within “ecosystems” (Oh et al., 2016) and within industrial companies is called “linear”. (Joly, 2017) It is so named because it assumes a direct line between scientific theory and technical engineering, production start-up and commercialization. It works very well in industry for new products, responding there to identified needs or those likely to emerge. It is particularly based on techno-scientific progress, because in the high-tech sectors, the most “innovative” and the biggest consumers of techno-scientific “knowledge”, markets are growing very fast, and competition is largely based on “product innovation”. It has gradually broadened to include quality and reputation, organizational improvement, and more recently, consideration of environmental or social responsibility (Von Schomberg & Hankins, 2019), etc. It has rapidly expanded to include the development of new products, services, and processes. It has spread rapidly to the civil service and government departments in the name of modernizing communications infrastructures and IT/office automation, and today artificial intelligence and massive data, but also in the name of rationalization, accompanying reductions in state intervention in the economy (new public management policies). (Rival & Ruano-Borbalan, 2017).

This vision developed at the “mezzo” scale of industrial or administrative organizations and institutions combines the classic conceptions of organizational change, cost reduction, technological innovation, and R&D (in the case of companies). It is precisely these analyses at organizational and individual levels (the role of social actors) that are increasingly being developed and relayed within society and Higher Education. The first production/diffusion sector is well known, namely the two groups now integrated into networks at international level: business schools on the one hand, and engineering schools on the other. (Bloch et al., 2018), related to utilitarian and professionalizing higher education.

At the end of the twentieth century, discourses promoting innovation took hold of more traditional forms of education and training, based on discourses developed within engineering and management schools, particularly through the spectacular development of so-called “managerial” or innovation Universities resulting from university massification and the change in objectives and missions assigned by public authorities to this type of training. (Engvall, 2020) These processes are far from being confined to formerly industrialized countries, and in recent decades have spearheaded the establishment of pedagogical and research frameworks for higher education systems that have become widespread throughout the world. They have led to a form of unification of training (particularly higher education) and management or engineering practices, (Ruano-Borbalan, 2019) and this from Western university forms to developing countries and to China or India.

This process “metabolizes” discourses of change and innovation through active pedagogy promoting creativity and project (the flip side of which is a very powerful technical or administrative standardization) within Higher Education (Ruano-Borbalan, 2017) or now compulsory education. Using Management and engineering schools or entrepreneurial programs as vectors, It is an essential part in the dissemination of the doctrine of innovation and creativity within society, in the multiple forms of social or political action. Thus, in the years 2000/2010, discourses promoting innovation became hegemonic, albeit multiform and polysemic (technical, managerial, politico-administrative, urban, social innovation, etc.), and only for a short time. They constituted a kind of positive narrative enchantment, supposed to enable the resolution of “entangled” societal or economic problems, using creative and “breakthrough” methodologies based primarily on projects.

To sum up, the doctrine of techno-industrial or managerial innovation reached its apogee at the end of the Cold War, from the 1990s to the 2000s (Lechevalier, 2019), then gradually became contested and restricted to economic, managerial and political circles: becoming what it is today, the common thought of economic circles, engineers and managers, modernist reformers and upper-middle-class urban individuals, for the most part. Increasingly, however, there is ambiguity and a kind of hiatus between contradictory discourses: On the one hand, there is growing concern and mistrust of industrial and techno-scientific development, particularly in relation to systemic, technological risks (the Fukushima Daïchi disaster having played a major role) or industrial and consumer risks (climate crisis). On the other hand, scientific, engineering, management or media discourse continues to value the development of innovation and industrial development. (Ruano-Borbalan, 2021).

The persistence of discourses and doctrines promoting innovation is a fact. It stems first and foremost from the power of the dominant doctrines of economic and managerial justification, forged within institutions of higher education and research (Popp Bermann, 2022) and the media in particular. It now feeds into education and training systems, notably through the development of creativity and entrepreneurship, although the penetration of these concepts varies widely from country to country. The persistence of a voluntarist discourse around innovation also stems from the fact that the latter, as a process of joint management of political and industrial governance frameworks and the production of techno-scientific knowledge (the production regime based on the development of “strategic knowledge”) has yielded spectacular results in terms of development and material well-being. The rapid resolution of certain systemic crises, such as the Covid 19 pandemic, was made possible by advances in this massive, oriented knowledge regime. It should be noted here that these results of innovation and the generalization of the dominant regime of strategic scientific knowledge production have not been equitably distributed, even if emerging countries can invoke this to explain their formidable catch-up growth. China, for example, is a spectacular example of the success - in terms of production of material goods and techno-scientific innovations - of this new regime. It has set itself the goal of becoming the world’s most innovative nation, through the massive growth of its research and education institutions and production systems, and of course the revival of its macro-economic, techno-scientific and entrepreneurial innovation objectives (Kroll & Frietsch, 2022).

Higher education within ecosystems of innovation: New missions for new challenges

initially confined to states’ industrial and techno-scientific development policies, innovation evolved over time, extending from local initiatives in agriculture to companies and regions in the 70s and 80s (Wisnioski et al., 2019). The concept of “local innovation systems,” exemplified by regions like Silicon Valley, emphasized synergy among governance, industry, and education systems (Ortiz, 2014). This model gained prominence in regional and macro-regional development strategies. More recently, since the end of the Nineties in developed countries, innovation has been increasingly perceived as a multifaceted reality encompassing university and research, industry, management, and social and political actions. The evolution of national research and development systems highlights a shift towards promoting individual initiative and creativity, aligning with international consensus advocated by organizations like the OECD, UNESCO, and the European Union. The emphasis on individual creativity varies across sectors, with scientific curiosity valued in industrial design and R&D services, while creative and cooperative capacity takes precedence in education, management, corporate governance, and urban innovation policies (Nowotny, 2008; Ruano-Borbalan, 2017).

Thus, during the same time, framed by the affirmation of the new regime of strategic knowledge and research, the Higher Education landscape evolved quantitatively and qualitatively. University, in a Northern European and American understanding, became the universal institution of global Higher education and knowledge production. And a new strong mission (developing industrial and territorial innovation) has been added to their traditional missions (education and research). The example of Wichita State University, in Kansas, is emblematic. It’s president, John Bardo resumed the aims of all Universities, including the three missions, in actual economic context, facing local to international challenges: «University education and research play a pivotal role in the nation’s global competitiveness. We at WSU take this responsibility seriously, and we are fully focused on our role in securing the future. Our strategic plan is straightforward in its vision and direction: Our core vision is for Wichita State University is to be inter- nationally recognized as the model for applied learning and research.

The mission of Wichita State University is to be an essential educational, cultural, and economic driver for Kansas and the greater public good.

This vision and mission are inspiring Wichita State University to focus on becoming a model US university driven by the emerging educational needs of a much broader range of students than traditional universities, as well as by the need to better compete in today’s globalized marketplace for the benefit of the people, the region, and the state we serve. In short, we are driven to provide employment opportunities, prosperity, and economic inclusion for those living in southcentral Kansas.»(Bardo, 2019).

John Bardo recall the existence of a strong national regulation and financing policy to develop regional clusters of innovation including Universities (40 nationwide) and emphasize the role of specific interdisciplinary programs for innovation and the link with business. One could illustrate such orientations everywhere in the world. Orientations are always framed with same discourses, coming from international and national institutions framing of economic and administration policies, all Universities are not competing at the same level. Some create enterprises incubators in a difficult context, as in Beirut where the University of Holly spirit initiated the Ascher Center for developing entrepreneurship, for example, in a devastated economic situation (El Hayeck, 2023). Some, the majority, in other contexts and with different possibilities try to develop strong «champions» able to compete, using international evaluations. It can be at the national level to structure and align a voluntarist orientation for innovation, as one can see for example observing the recent creation «ex Nihilo» of an entirely private University like « Mohamed 6 polytechnic University» in Morocco, created by a big national fertilizer firm, the OCP. The «vision» promoted is clearly to develop applied research through creativity, cooperative and experiential pedagogy ( as in Wichita State University and all US or European colleges, engineering or management schools, and to help directly Morocco African development ambitions: «Located in Benguerir, near Marrakech, in the heart of the Mohammed VI Green City, Mohammed VI Polytechnic University intends to shine on a national, continental and international scale.

More than just a traditional academic institution, Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) is a platform for experimentation, a breeding ground for opportunities, which students refer to as a “School of Life”.

Reduced representation of the outside world, with its challenges, perspectives and promises; the University aims to reveal the potential of Moroccan youth and students from all over Africa. UM6P is a hub of knowledge dedicated to research, high-level education, and innovation to support the development of the continent. Our university is also committed to an innovative pedagogical approach which places learning by experimentation and practice at the heart of training and research. Our pedagogy is at the service of curiosity and creativity of students, professors, and partners. » (https://www.um6p.ma/en/vision)

In a country such France, whose aspirations is to not loose it’s historical capacity in Higher Education and research, the alignment on European transformations and jumps into new strategic knowledge production system is also impressive: multiple reforms since the adoption of the European Bologna process of Higher Education and research convergences at the end of the 20^th century (Noûs, 2020); adoption of international norms; increasing power of administrations, affirmation of useful knowledge and English as a research and even education language; etc. A good example of the dramatic transformation is given by the « Saclay» important national project of an industrial innovation cluster, gathering of universities/HE institutions and research project nearby Paris. (Veltz, 2016) In 2014, the French government initiated the creation of the Université Paris-Saclay, operating under the name of University and HE establishments community « communauté d’universités et établissements (COMUE)», with the ambitious goal of establishing a preeminent international institution, particularly excelling in global rankings like the Shanghai ranking. This endeavor sought to bring together distinguished institutions, including Université Paris-Sud, École Normale Supérieure de Cachan, École Centrale Paris, Institut d'Optique, AgroParisTech, and others, all unified under the umbrella of «Université Paris-Saclay».

The overarching vision extended beyond academic excellence, emphasizing the attraction of global talent, and fostering collaboration across diverse scientific disciplines. With over 60 master’s degrees and more than 200 laboratories, the university aimed to replicate the successful model of Cambridge in England, where different colleges unite students around specific themes while maintaining a shared identity as the University of Cambridge.

The French government allocated a substantial investment of over 5 billion euros towards the realization of this project, with continued involvement from prominent French companies like Total, EDF, and Thales. This significant commitment has translated into a top-tier structure, benefiting the 65,000 students on the Paris-Saclay campus.

However, the rationale behind the university’s creation, which is the very heart of French Higher Education reforms in the beginning of the 21th century (Musselin, 2017), diverges from traditional ideals that have historically guided the development of French and European universities. The pragmatic focus on performance and techno-production reflects an attempt to assimilate Northern European, or American and Asian « models», aiming to shine in international rankings and contribute to the development of a robust productive fabric.

While this shift in doctrine brings advantages, such as enhanced global visibility and potential economic impact, it also introduces challenges. It faces resistance due to conflicting with principles deeply ingrained in French academic research. The tension between tradition and the pursuit of new models underscores the complexities inherent in reshaping the landscape of higher education.

The «third mission» of the universities

As said above, the international higher education landscape has undergone major transformations, affecting leading institutions as much as lesser-known ones. This evolution leads us to question the essence and characteristics of a “university” as an institutional standard. Today’s emphasis on “quality”, in line with the administrative accounting and evaluation standards of public and private companies and public administrations, is accompanied by a strengthening of the management of higher education, which has been aligned with the standardization of scientific production, through scientometrics and the standardization of publications. A massive, standardized, and globalized knowledge production system has emerged, leading to convergences and polarizations within the global higher education sector. Over the past three or four decades, there has been an evolution towards standardized governance and convergence on a global scale. This transformation is characterized by common goals in terms of professionalization, education, and pedagogy, as well as a growing dependence on funding, massification and technology. Despite persistent differences, higher education institutions (HEIs), particularly universities, have adopted strong and sometimes similar economic and societal implications.

In less than half a century, higher education institutions, influenced by market forces and state pressures, have developed new economic and societal activities. As a result, their missions have evolved significantly, emphasizing global institutional organizational innovation, and fostering the acquisition of new knowledge and skills by individuals. These institutions are now forced to consider a “third mission” beyond their traditional teaching and research roles: namely, the development of entrepreneurship and innovation. This introduces a promising but challenging dimension, requiring universities to reassess their socio-economic roles and adapt their organizational characteristics, often without a clear roadmap or prior experience.

From the point of view of the World Economic Forum, the OECD or a notable part of the higher education management literature, the higher education system needs to develop two main types of “entrepreneurial” activities. On the one hand, entrepreneurial education, which consists in fostering the entrepreneurial spirit in students and graduates through academic programs, specific courses, joint laboratories, and co-creation platforms with industry players. And on the other hand, direct entrepreneurial activities, which extend to the creation of spin-offs, university start-ups, the generation of intellectual property rights (IPR) and engagement in collaborative research. University entrepreneurship includes the development of support structures such as technology transfer offices and industrialization offices. This entrepreneurial orientation, now very much present in undergraduate and specialist schools or entrepreneurial universities, is not limited to researchers; universities encourage all members, including teachers and students, to participate in campus-wide initiatives that develop entrepreneurial activities.

The emergence of the “third mission” reflects a response to the multifaceted demands of governments, industries, and other stakeholders in society. This mission covers the involvement of universities in societal and economic development, the dissemination of knowledge beyond their walls as part of scientific mediation programs, and so on. It requires universities to achieve greater autonomy by covering their own costs, while at the same time bringing tangible benefits to a variety of stakeholders in society. The third mission focuses primarily on supporting business innovation and national competitiveness. (Compagnucci & Spigarelli, 2020) The third mission is conceived as a mature additional mission of universities, and has become one of the key threads of the higher education system, entangled with governance, research excellence, quality assurance, funding, etc. institutions are seeking to becoming more commercially engaged and university societal impacts are shaped by the wider institutional and regulatory environment in which they operate.

Unsurprisingly, HEIs tend to address this mission as a variant of their recent openness to the business world. Thus, in a context where «unleashing» innovation and creativity is a pervasive motto, the «third mission » tends to revolve around two main orientations:

- developing techno scientific, engineering / managerial, and entrepreneurial attitudes within and outside Higher education systems

Universities thus find themselves at a crossroads, caught between the pressures of standardization induced by global research rankings and the penchant for specialization, which enables them to forge a unique identity. This delicate balance underlines the complexity of the higher education landscape.

In their quest for greater societal and economic engagement, HEIs recognize that the impact of universities does not depend solely on individual commercialization projects. On the contrary, these impacts are strongly influenced by the wider institutional and regulatory environment in which universities operate. Unsurprisingly, higher education institutions tend to interpret the third mission as a natural extension of their evolving relationship with the business world, which differs greatly from country to country.

In a contemporary context where innovation and creativity are the watchwords, the third mission has two main thrusts:

- Reinforcing techno-scientific, engineering, management, and entrepreneurial attitudes: This orientation applies both inside and outside higher education systems, emphasizing the culture of expertise in these fields.

Policy matters

If we focus on European realities, it becomes clear that «excellence» in higher education is pursued through a variety of strategies adapted to the specific contexts of different regions. If we look at the Belgian landscape, a small country of some ten million inhabitants, we see that, of the two historical regions, Flanders was one of the earliest in Europe to jointly develop innovation and universities. Today, the Wallonia-Brussels region (Belgium’s other region) also has a distinct policy of innovation and excellence. Since the 1980s, Flanders has been pursuing a targeted strategy to become a leading innovation region, while Wallonia-Brussels, in the 21st century, has embarked on a mission to recover from industrial decline through a specific plan (Creative Wallonia) focused on the creative industries. The Belgian situation thus illustrates the different trajectories within a single country (Charlier, 2021).

This is also characteristic of a fragmented European situation: the university and region of Twente, in the Netherlands, stand out for their unique blend of technology, social sciences and entrepreneurship. On the other hand, regions such as the Nantes and Saint-Nazaire agglomerations in western France illustrate how regional innovation can be stimulated by culture and art, departing from traditional approaches focused solely on techno-industrial development.

A closer look at Europe’s leading industrial country, Germany, however, reveals, as in the above-mentioned examples, the crucial role of public policies to develop higher education and research. German public policies have initiated an ambitious university excellence initiative that runs from 2005 to 2017/19. This initiative, launched by the German Council for Science and the Arts and the German Research Foundation (DFG), aimed to promote cutting-edge research, create favorable conditions for young researchers and strengthen international cooperation. With over 40 research schools, 30 centers of excellence and the designation of 11 universities of excellence, Germany’s commitment to research and innovation has consolidated its position as a global research center.

In France, the Investissements d’avenir (PIA) program, launched in 2010 and running until 2023, underlines the government’s commitment to innovation in higher education and research. With a total investment of 57 billion euros in successive PIA programs, France has supported various research and innovation initiatives, including the creation of technological research institutes, university hospital institutes, technology transfer acceleration companies, university research schools and the ambitious Paris-Saclay technology cluster project discussed above.

Completing the investments in research and Higher Education through the PIA Program, and to rapidly revive the economy and achieve results in terms of decarbonization, industrial reconquest, and the strengthening of skills and qualifications throughout the country, France Relance, an exceptional €100 billions recovery plan, has been deployed by the Government around three strands: ecological transition, competitiveness, and cohesion. The European Union is providing around €40 billion in financial support for this plan.

The €54 billions France 2030 investment plan is in line with the France Relance plan. It is designed to:

Pursue the transformation of key sectors of our economy through technological innovation, by supporting capacity investments to catch up in certain sectors.

Encourage the emergence of new industries in these strategic sectors, while exploring new areas where France is already at the technological frontier.

This plan supports projects of excellence across the entire production value chain, and continues the government’s strategy of promoting investment, innovation, and reindustrialization. The France Relance plan, which is conceived to accelerate the country’s ecological, industrial, and social transformation, proposes measures aimed at everyone: individuals, companies and associations, local authorities, and administrations.

Addressing key challenges, the European Union (EU) has identified seven priority areas for targeted research and innovation investment that can positively impact citizens. These encompass health, demographic change, and well-being, focusing on enhancing healthcare, addressing demographic shifts, and promoting overall well-being. The bioeconomy emphasizes food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine and maritime research, and inland waterways research.

Furthermore, the EU prioritizes secure, clean, and efficient energy, striving for advancements in energy security, cleanliness, and efficiency. Smart, green, and integrated transportation solutions are sought for intelligent, eco-friendly, and integrated mobility. Climate action, environmental concerns, efficient resource usage, and raw material challenges are addressed collectively. In the context of a changing world, fostering inclusive, innovative, and reflective societies is essential, along with ensuring the freedom and security of Europe and its citizens.

At the European level, actors, governance, and the functioning of research and innovation are guided by the European Excellence Initiative (EEI). This initiative has led to the creation of European University alliances with objectives such as ensuring a balanced circulation of talents and strengthening the role of higher education in innovation ecosystems. Practices for open sharing of knowledge and data, reforms in research assessment systems, and enhanced links between science and business are emphasized. Moreover, gender equality, diversity, and inclusiveness are promoted through initiatives like gender equality plans and policies. The initiative also accelerates society’s green and digital transition, facilitating international cooperation with entities in third countries.

An exemplary project in this context is Bridges 5.0, a consortium fostering active collaboration between researchers, eight EU industrial companies, nine Industry 4.0 ecosystems, and key EU social partners. (https://bridges5-0.eu) As European industry undergoes digital transformation, Industry 5.0, a paradigm shift, incorporates employees, the environment, and resilience. (Nahavandi, 2019) This envisions a future where businesses play a pivotal role in building a prosperous and sustainable society through innovative production methods.

Conclusion

The paper looks at the transformative landscape of higher education, tracing its evolution against a backdrop of growing individualism, historical trends in political anthropology and contemporary challenges such as immigration, terrorism, global warming, pandemics, and geopolitical struggles. The nature and role of universities have undergone substantial change, propelled by the spectacular growth of higher education, organizational engineering, techno-industrial developments, and the rise of the new techno-sciences.

In the field of knowledge production, the paper highlights the revolutionary emergence of innovation doctrines and realities, symbolized by the complex interaction between higher education, industry, and governments: over the past fifty years, innovation has become a ubiquitous politico-economic doctrine on a global scale, impacting public policy, economic environments, administrations, and civil society.

The transition from the historical regime of the “endless frontier”, dominated by fundamental research, to the triumph of the “strategic research” paradigm, anchored in economic and political objectives, marks a paradigmatic shift. This transition has led to the conceptualization of a “third mission” for universities, emphasizing entrepreneurial engagement, lifelong learning, and impact on society. The global trend towards entrepreneurial universities, integrated into innovative ecosystems and serving diverse stakeholders, is evident.

Historical trajectories, and transformative initiatives European and global perspectives shows fundamentally the fusion of Higher education in National systems of innovation, as a kind of ancillary part of it, bound to fulfill «good knowledge» for economic or political challenges. But obviously, this is one way, the governmental and administration legitimate way, to understand knowledge production and transfers activities and systems. In those visions, rationalization, performance and productivity is put ahead as almost unique goals, and complex consequences of Human societies activities on environment (in a evolutionist perspective) are decreed to be «under control», or about to be. This paper has no will to discuss if this is true or not, but to understand « ways of knowing» and justifications.