Is the European Research University going to be a historical parenthesis? The question has been raised, yet there is no agreed-upon answer, and this article aims at providing a framework for making sense of the current dynamics of the University. The key issue is: What kind of university and what kind of academics for what kind of society?
Using an institutional perspective, University dynamics is seen as driven by tensions between three of the key institutions of modern society - science, representative democracy and the market economy - and between different policy-sectors and levels of governance.
Attention is in particular given to the increasing importance of Europe as the framework for university reforms, and how the University may adapt to changing demands and expectations without losing its institutional identity and integrity.
A later version of this paper was published in Norsk Statsvitenskapelig Tidskrift, 2007, Vol. 23, pp: 267-287.