Social Science Research Council

The globalization of corporate R&D is one of the characteristic hallmarks of the new regime of knowledge production. Of course, multinational companies headquartered in smaller countries like the Netherlands and Switzerland have long internationalized their R&D activities essentially from their inception; but the more striking trend is the sharp rise in international outsourcing of research across the board since the 1980s.

As universities are increasingly exposed to the rough justice of the market, their institutional life is distinguished more by the rate of change than by the observance of custom and tradition. Few examples illustrate this better than the rush, in recent years, to establish overseas programs and branch campuses. Since 9/11, the pace of offshoring has surged and is being pursued across the entire spectrum of institutions that populate the higher education landscape, from the ballooning for-profit sectors and online diploma mills to land grant universities to the most elite, ivied colleges. No single organization has attained the operational status of a global university, after the model of the global corporation, but it may only be a matter of time before we see the current infants of that species take their first, unaided steps.