The Century of Science

The Global Triumph of the Research University

Winner of the 2017 Award for Significant Research on International Higher Education (CIHE/ASHE)

Winner of the 2018 American Publishers Awards for Professional & Scholarly Excellence: Education Theory

In The Century of Science, a multicultural, international team of authors examine the global rise of scholarly research in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and health (STEM+) fields. This insightful text provides historical and sociological understandings of the ways that higher education has become an institution that, more than ever before, shapes science and society. Case studies, supported by the most historically and spatially extensive database on STEM+ publications available, of selected countries in Europe, North America, East Asia, and the Middle East, emphasize recurring themes: the institutionalization and differentiation of higher education systems to the proliferation of university-based scientific research fostered by research policies that support continued university expansion leading to the knowledge society. Growing worldwide, research universities appear to be the most legitimate sites for knowledge production.  

The chapters offer new insights into how countries develop the university-based knowledge thought fundamental to meeting social needs and economic demands. Despite repeated warnings that universities would lose in relevance to other organizational forms in the production of knowledge, these findings demonstrate incontrovertibly that universities have become more—not less—important actors in the world of knowledge. The past hundred years have seen the worldwide triumph of the research university.