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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Are Universities Ready to Face the Knowledge-Based Economy?

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It is generally agreed that the two main functions of universities are to transmit high level knowledge and to produce new knowledge. For centuries, these two functions were performed in a context in which only a small share of the relevant age cohort attended higher education institutions. After the Second World War, this context changed radically and higher education began to face more or less continuous growth. This has led to the situation that, in the developed economies, more than 40 per cent of the younger generation now attend third-level institutions (cf. Teichler, 2000).