- Knowledge and Civilisation 1939-1957
Knowledge, identified as important to the nation during the war, was doubly so after it, attached as it was to a now shaky idea of civilisation. This importance led to a funding structure that made knowledge purchasable, with government its potential buyer.
- Knowledge and Progress 1945-1966
After the Second World War, civilisation and progress came to mean technological progress and economic growth, positioning universities as central to the economy
- Knowledge and Revolution 1967-1973
Student revolution against the production of graduates as products, complicity of the university with ‘the establishment’ and experiments with pedagogy and governance established new norms, undermined old hierarchies and enabled the student-consumer.
- Knowledge and Economics 1973-1989
In the 1980s, knowledge was so important to the economy that government felt it could not afford to leave it in the hands of academics and their gift economy
- Knowledge and Nation 1980-1989
Government in the 1980s used funding structures to try to control knowledge and direct it to national priorities
- Knowledge Trade 1986-1996
Universities attempted to control the knowledge trade through intellectual property, reconfiguring their business as a trade in knowledge, undermining their purpose