‘The linear model’ did not exist: Reflections on the history and historiography of science and research in industry in the twentieth century

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Abstract

‘The linear model’ has become a term of art in studies of science policy and innovation, and in some historical studies of science and technology. It is, like ‘technological determinism’ and ‘Whig’ history of science and technology, an invention of\nacademic commentators. Like these, but unlike ‘scientific revolution’ or ‘big science,’ ‘linear model’ was not meant to be an analytically useful concept: it is there to be condemned as simplistic and inaccurate. It is a foil for the more elaborated academic account, in short, a classic straw man. But it is more than a straw man: although it is of recent invention, some students of science and technology have given the model historical agency. They have come to believe that it existed in the minds of\nacademic analysts and key policymakers of the past,\nand that it had a powerful influence on policy and practice. Worse still, the idea of ‘the linear model’ often locks even critics into a concern with ‘basic’ science, even in the study of ‘innovation’: proponents (such as they are) and critics, share a model of science in which science is academic research. In this model studies of academic research are privileged, as is innovation in such studies.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationThe Science-Industry Nexus: History, Policy, Implications.
Pages1-36
Number of pages36
Publication statusPublished - 2004

Publication series

NameThe Science-Industry Nexus: History, Policy, Implications.

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