The Science-Industry Nexus: History, Policy, Implications (Nobel Symposium 123)

Grandin, Karl, Nina Wormbs, Anders Lundgren, and Sven Widmalm, eds., 2004, 480pp., illus. Excerpted from the introduction: The Nobel Symposium, of which the current volume is a result, wanted to gauge the current level of academic debate about "science and industry in the 20th century"—with an emphasis on historical aspects but in various ways connecting them to the ongoing discussion about science-industry relations in cultures between historians and business-studies scholars . . . was noticeable at the symposium . . . the "linear model" was used as a point of departure for the project and, also, to some extent for the symposium. This model has been used to rethink the relationship between science, technology, and society for over a century now . . . This was a powerful expression of faith in the existence of a casual relationship between science, technology, and society . . .  This unidirectional model has been regarded by many of us as something of a straw man—but during the symp