The social function of the university in the face of competitiveness

Abstract

Nowadays, the development of proprietary knowledge is indispensable for a company to be able to compete. One of the characteristics of today's society is the central role of knowledge in productive processes, to the point that the most frequent qualifier that is usually given to it is that of knowledge society. The competitive structure of markets is changing fundamentally as a result of globalization, continuous technological evolution and the trend towards deregulation. In this context, the traditional sources of competitive advantage for companies - physical and financial assets, privileged access to raw materials or to protected market segments, and even to technology - are no longer sufficient because they tend to be more widely available to all, all things being equal. We are witnessing the emergence of a new productive economic paradigm in which the most important factor is no longer the availability of capital, labor, raw materials or energy, but the intensive use of knowledge and information.