7 



but he had achieved relative autonomy in the goals that he set and the manner 

 he went about achieving them. 



But he was less than adequate in establishing adequate lateral 

 relationships with others at his level and with adjacent special-purpose 

 organizations. Here the German model required redefinition that was 

 achieved in the course of subsequent experience in the United States and 

 elsewhere. This redefinition accorded the researcher more functional feed- 

 back paths with a real world which by this time had become a set of complex 

 productive technologies. The university researcher entered unblushingly 

 into alliance with contemporary technological practice. The factory and the 

 market place became his laboratory as the university campus became the gather- 

 ing place of the engineer and the manager. This stepped-up inter-action had 

 its effect on both parties. In the course of field work, consultation and 

 research reporting, the university researcher had a chance to test the 

 relevance and quality of his findings; and, as these findings became more 

 relevant and qualified, the practitioner found that he could ignore them 

 only at his peril. An effective education-industry interface had been fashioned 

 and the lateral feedback loop closed. 



Yet the gains so achieved would have eroded with time had the new 

 organizational form not acquired capacity for regeneration and self renewal. 

 Under conditions of rapid growth individuals tend to become professionally 

 obsolete and politically defensive and institutions to rigidify as the result 

 of well-understood processes. The adaptive response to these circumstances, 

 where it has been taken, has consisted in the emergence of a value that 

 favors internal change and modification responsive to a changing external 

 circumstance. Thus the research-based university will pride itself upon the 



