Comment on the multi-person interview: "the future of research universities".

As the interviewees in EMBO reports’ recent multi-person interview on the future of research universities made clear, universities continue to play a crucial role in the future of knowledge-based economies at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Although universities have also played a vital role in the invention and success of industrybased capitalism in the preceding centuries (Nelson, 1990), the current political and economic changes towards a knowledgebased society might be the main determinants for the future of research universities. The knowledge-based society itself is the result of a change in market capitalism to ‘technocapitalism’, which is characterized by its reliance on scientific research and technological innovations (Suarez-Villa, 2000, 2001, 2003). Intangible values, such as creativity and knowledge, are the commodities of technocapitalism, as much as tangible raw materials, labour and capital were the commodities that underpinned industrial capitalism (SuarezVilla, 2000, 2001). In fact, the emergence of technocapitalism has made knowledge such a valuable commodity—accounting for 75% of the value of most of the existing products and services in the world today—that material commodities now occupy secondary positions (Suarez-Villa, 2000, 2001). The interaction between technocapitalism and science is also generating new networks for collaboration and disciplines for technological innovation—for example, biotechnology, nanotechnology, informatics and genomics. Both public and private enterprises are driven by research and innovation, which is in sharp contrast to industrial capitalism’s entrepreneurs who focus more on production (Suarez-Villa, 2000). Societies that are aspiring to raise their citizens’ living standards in the new era Despite the rise of technocapitalism’s university–industrial complex, it could be argued that the university has outlived its traditional role as the guardian of national culture (Readings, 1998). The rise of technocapitalism is a compulsory response to the evolution of capitalism as the engine of progress in modern society (Nelson, 1990). Unless there is a reversal in the trend of declining public funding to academic institutions, the future of research universities will be intimately linked to changes in capitalism.