Knowledge Transfer

In modern “knowledge societies” (Stehr 1994), knowledge is increasingly depicted as essential for economic growth and social and political inclusion. Consequentially, training and research facilities such as schools and universities become crucial determinants for a society’s ability to remain competitive and develop knowledge-based and knowledge-driven economies. Likewise, more recent research has identified knowledge as an essential driving force of development while pointing out that low-income countries in the Global South, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, struggle to put their domestic universities in a position to contribute to national development (Kruss et al. 2012). This apparent failure of transferring knowledge from the laboratories, academic hallways, and lecture theatres to broader society cannot be reduced to a lack of resources but often indicates a more general mismatch between academia and society (Kruss et al. 2012, 523–24), a lack of interaction or understanding between scientific and non-scientific communities.