Center for Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research

Tuunainen, J. & Knuuttila, T. (conditionally accepted) The Advent of a Hybrid Research Group - A New Direction for Science and Universities? Science, Technology, & Human Values.

The growing role of universities in the knowledge economy as well as technology transfer has increasingly been conceptualized in terms of the hybridization of public academic work and private business activity. In this paper, we examine the difficulties and prospects of this kind of hybridization by studying the long-term trajectories of two research groups operating in the fields of plant biotechnology and language technology. In both cases, the attempts to simultaneously pursue academic and commercial activities led to complicated boundary work, which arose from the conflicting procedures and requirements of the two activities. We, thus, argue that the construction of boundaries is not as contingent and strategic as has often been assumed, but is built, instead, on the characteristic goals and tasks of the activities in question. Moreover, we suggest that the discussion on university-industry relationships and the entrepreneurial university has by and large neglected two things in its emphasis on the intermingling of institutional spheres: 1) the important educational function of univer-sities and 2) the administrators’ work in defining the operational conditions for academics, both of which heavily influence the demarcation between university and business activities.