Dynamics of Institutional Forms on the Science Frontier

Abstract

The paper proves an urgency of information research of the science and technologies sphere. It represents the results, which allow to describe the dynamics of institutional forms on the science frontier. A review of examples from the EU and the USA shows that a significant factor of these changes is an aspiration of innovation system administrators to provide a legitimization for public expenditures on RD. The concept of evolutionary (helical) development of institutional forms (HIDS – Helical Institutional Development Scheme) helps to prove that there is a correlation between dynamics of organizational and semantic forms, when the latter are introduced into the research domain. The assumption of discrete character of goods is a characteristic of the author's model which is later extended on mental forms and institutes. The given property forms phenomena of discreteness of institutional space and, consequentially, the presence of barriers effects in this space. The regulator aims to overcome such barriers because certain types of organizational structures in sciences can successfully operate only at certain intuitional levels. HIDS is offered as a means for this purpose. Theoretical descriptions of strategic regulation methods: (i) “upstream” and (ii) "downstream", are supplemented by a metaphor of "swing". Thus one can interpret those methods within the limits of the spiral development movement as (a) clockwise: from culture (means) of thinking – to routines; and (b) counter-clockwise: from institutes – to routines and organizational culture (means) of thinking. The author stresses that the order of organizational forms is structured by the mission. In situations of uncertainty the most natural decision of an administrator is to offer the organisation a quasiverbalised institutional form. The mission then may be elaborated in the process of activity of the learning organisation (e.g., a new science imperative), along with probably new way of thinking, and if necessary – new organizational forms. A metaphor of an intelligent organism allows formulating a thesis that a science information research institute cannot be just a “memory carrier” of complex systems nowadays. There is urgency not only for a long-term memory, but also for means and mechanisms of analyses of constantly changing communications and tendencies in science and technology.

Keywords

• fundamental research
• discrete institutional space
• learning organization
• helical institutional development
• memory