4

some noTes on

mode 1 and mode 2:

adVeRsaRies oR

dialogue paRTneRs?

Halina Dunin-Woyseth

Briefly on Mode 1 and Mode 2

numerous publications on research and knowledge production have reported in the last
twenty or more years that there was a radical, irreversible, world- wide transformation in
the way that science is organized, managed and performed (ziman 2000: 67). profound
changes can be traced in epistemic institutions like universities, research institutes and
industrial laboratories.
in their canonical book The New Production of Knowledge. The Dynamics of Science
and Research in Contemporary Societies, six international scholars under the academic
co-ordination of michael gibbons maintained that these changes concerned not only
science, but also technology, social sciences and the humanities (gibbons et al. 1994:
1). Changes in the practices of knowledge production bear certain attributes which
encouraged the authors of the book to call them a new mode of knowledge production.
While the traditional academic mode of knowledge production was given the name of
mode 1, the new emerging mode was called mode 2.
The authors begin the book by delineating the differences between mode 1 and
mode 2:

in mode 1 problems are set and solved in a context governed by the largely

academic interests of a specific community. By contrast, mode 2 knowledge

is carried out in a context of application. mode 1 is disciplinary while mode

2 is transdisciplinary; mode 1 is characterized by homogeneity, mode 2 by

heterogeneity. organizationally, mode 1 is hierarchical and tends to preserve

its form, while mode 2 is more heterarchical and transient. each employs a

different type of quality control. in comparison with mode 1, mode 2 is more

socially accountable and reflexive. it includes a wider, more temporary and