Academic Change

Since the beginning of the 1990s, higher education and science systems worldwide have been in a phase of dynamic change with regard to the structures of knowledge production and organisational form. Universities in particular are affected by this development. However, since universities are strongly self-logically operating organisations and there are inherent tendencies in university knowledge production that oppose (often externally initiated) change, contradictory effects instead of radical change and the realisation of models favoured by higher education and science policy are evident at the same time.

The research area "Scientific Change" therefore focuses on universities as places of knowledge production, and the research projects focus on change tendencies and continuities in scientific knowledge production and the university as an organisation. The empirical analysis of continuity and change is realised by means of research projects in which different qualitative and quantitative methods (interview-based case studies, organisational chart analysis, bibliometrics and network analyses) are used.