What is Knowledge Policy?

Excerpt from my PhD thesis about knowledge policy

The notion of knowledge policy refers to the political mechanisms used to realise knowledge goals at the individual and social level. The policy focus on impacts of knowledge on society is part of what Nico Stehr (2004) has termed “knowledge politics”. The reason for the emergence of knowledge policies, according to Stehr, include, the emergence of new forms of knowledge leading in part to the diminishing of difference between applied and basic research; the rapid speed and volume of emerging new knowledge creates increased capacities to act, concerns for possible adverse impacts, increased risk and uncertainty, increased social, economic and political centrality of knowledge and a wish by the governments to regulate knowledge in the face of globalisation and finally a further strengthening of the authority of science in modern society. The policy resulting from this new situation, relates to “policy aimed at facilitating the development of knowledge-intensive industries, and is about ‘knowledge work’ and ‘knowledge workers’ ” (Rooney, Hearn, Mandeville & Joseph, 2003, p. xv). Further, the knowledge-related policy discourse has an engineering bent, as it fixes attention on scientific, technological and information infrastructure (Graham & Rooney, 2001 cited in Rooney et al., 2003). Rooney et al. (2003) critique the limited focus of knowledge related policy and argue for a deeper level of analysis that includes social structure and cultural values, in order for a more comprehensive vision of the knowledge society.
Author: Baljit Grewal, PhD Student, AUT University, Auckland