COBERTA 11 anglès 18/1/07 14:00 Página 1 11 11 CONEIXEMENT I SOCIETAT 11 Knowledge and Society SUMMARY ARTICLES Ecology, a romantic science? 06 Josep M. Camarasa CONEIXEMENT Science and technology parks and universities in the technology business incubator system: a contribution based on the triple helix model 32 Josep M. Piqué, Sònia González, Joan Bellavista and Victor Alves Cirit. 25 Years 48 Fina Villar i López CONEIXEMENT I SOCIETAT Knowledge and Society. Journal of Universities, NOTES I SOCIETAT Research and the Information Society. The Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB) 82 Number 10. January-April 2006. Jordi Camí, Reimund Fickert and Teresa Badia Barcelona Science Park (PCB): http:// www.gencat.cat/universitatsirecerca/coneixementisocietat research and innovation exchange between universities and the private sector 90 Susana Herráiz, Rosina Malagrida and Fernando Albericio Creating new technological knowledge: Analysis of a survey of inventors in Catalonia 102 Walter García-Fontes Ecology, a romantic science? Science and technology parks and universities in the technology business incubator system: a contribution based on the triple helix model CIRIT. 25 Years The Barcelona Biomedical RESÚMENES EN CASTELLANO / RESUMS EN CATALÀ 117 Research Park (PRBB) Barcelona Science Park (PCB): research and innovation exchange between universities and the private sector Creating new technological knowledge: analysis of a survey of inventors in Catalonia. COBERTA 11 anglès 18/1/07 14:00 Página 2 . CONEIXEMENT I SOCIETAT Knowledge and Society. Journal of Universities, Research and the Information Society. Number 11. May-August 2006 ISSN (english e-version): 1696-8212 ISSN (catalan printed version): 1696-7380 ISSN (catalan e-version): 1696-8212 Legal deposit (english e-version): B-38745-2004 Legal deposit (catalan printed version): B-27002-2003 Legal deposit (catalan e-version): B-26720-2005 Chief editor Josep M. Camarasa i Castillo Coordinator Blanca Ciurana i Llevadot Editorial board Joan Bravo i Pijoan, Joan Cadefau i Surroca, Jacqueline Glarner, Xavier Lasauca i Cisa, Esther Pallarols i Llinàs, Emilià Pola i Robles, Alba Puigdomènech Cantó, Josep Ribas i Seix, Jordi Sort i Miret, Ignasi Vendrell i Aragonès, Josep M. Vilalta i Verdú, Fina Villar i López Coordinating editor and production Glòria Vergés i Ramon Design Quin Team! Layout Inom,sa English translation Gerardo Denis Brons, Alan Lounds Jones, Carl MacGabhann, Ailish M. J. Maher, Charles Southgate and Tobias Willett The contents of the articles and notes are the sole responsability of the authors. CONEIXEMENT I SOCIETAT does not necessarily identify with the author Reproduction of articles and notes is allowed, provided that the original author and source are specified. Subscription to the printed Catalan version of CONEIXEMENT I SOCIETAT is free. It can be obtained from: Departament d’Educació i Universitats Gerència de Serveis Comuns de l’àmbit d’Universitats i Recerca Gabinet Tècnic Via Laietana, 33, 6è 08003 Barcelona tel. (00 34) 935 526 700 Fax. (00 34) 935 526 701 e-mail: [email protected] Also available on-line in Catalan on the DEiU web site: www.gencat.cat/universitatsirecerca/coneixementisocietat www.gencat.cat/universitatsirecerca/knowledgeandsociety 11 CONEIXEMENT I SOCIETAT Knowledge and Society. Journal of Universities, Research and the Information Society. Number 11. October 2006. ARTICLES 04 Ecology, a romantic science? Josep M. Camarasa 06 Science and technology parks and universities in the technology business incubator system: a contribution based on the triple helix model Josep M. Piqué, Sònia González, Joan Bellavista i Víctor Alves 32 CIRIT. 25 Years Fina Villar i López 48 NOTES 81 The Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB) Jordi Camí, Reimund Fickert i Teresa Badia 82 Barcelona Science Park (PCB): research and innovation exchange between universities and the private sector Susana Herráiz, Rosina Malagrida i Fernando Alberico 90 Creating new technological knowledge: analysis of a survey of inventors in Catalonia Walter García-Fontes 102 RESÚMENES EN CASTELLANO / RESUMS EN CATALÀ 117 a rticles 06 32 48 Ecology, a romantic Science and technology CIRIT. 25 Years science? parks and universities in the Fina Villar i López Josep M. Camarasa technology business incubator system: a contribution based on the triple helix model Josep M. Piqué, Sònia González, Joan Bellavista i Víctor Alves CONEIXEMENT I SOCIETAT 11 ARTICLES ECOLOGY, A ROMANTIC SCIENCE? Josep M. Camarasa* Ecology is an unusual scientific discipline with characteristics which it shares with very few others (it is, for ex- ample, a science of synthesis, its multiple roots, holistic focus, etc.). These characteristics and the history of the discipline show ecology to be a science which is deeply marked by the Romantic thought of the late 18th and early 19th centuries and which has reached its high points in periods which coincided with a flourishing of Romantic thought –understood as a critique of contemporary civilisation from within, or a critique of modernity. Contents 1. Justification 2. ‘Normal’ science and scientific revolutions 3. Ecology, a Romantic science? A science that differs from others Romanticism and modernity: an ongoing dialectic Science and Romanticism: the emergence of ecology 4. Holism and reductionism in the history of ecology The protohistory of ecology: from Humboldt to Haeckel Ecology’s view of itself: from the name to the thing The ecology of the inter-war period: the emergence of key concepts The ecological revolution of the 1950s and 1960s: matter, energy and information Not yet a fully? ‘normal’ science: recent developments 5. What now? When is the next revival due? * Josep M. Camarasa is an advisor to the Scientific Secretariat of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans. 6 ECOLOGY, A ROMANTIC SCIENCE? 1. Justification ceda with Romanticism, not to mention Schubert, Schumann, Gericault and C. D. Friedrich. Howev- Ecology as a Romantic science? This affirmation er, few would manage to name even one Romantic will, no doubt, be greeted by many with a smile of scientist, despite the fact that the period generally condescension, confirming them in their view that associated with the Romantic movement (late 18th ecology is not a ‘serious’ science. Others, howev- century and the first half of the 19th century) pro- er, for a variety of reasons will choose to disagree. duced many outstanding scientists. Who, for ex- In all likelihood, few ecologists will agree; some will ample, would succeed in naming Alexander von hold that the last thing their field needs is such a Humboldt, Sadi Carnot, Richard Owen or Hans dismissal. The academic world in general will, at Christian Oersted, to name but a handful of the very least, have reservations, or at worst, will reject most distinguished scientists of that time, as Ro- it outright. More than a few readers will no doubt mantic scientists? Darwin himself, in his life and be surprised to find the name of a scientific discip- work, was a Romantic, albeit restrained in his later line in such close company with an adjective deriv- years by the staid hypocrisy of Victorian society. ing from a social, cultural and artistic movement of the past, held, by the majority, to be anti-scientific or, at least, concerned with issues far removed from the realm of science. Perhaps, there would be Few people would manage to name even one wider acceptance for the view that ecology is a sci- ence with Romantic roots; however, as will be- Romantic scientist. come clear below, the discipline has myriad and di- verse roots, most of which date further back than the Romantic movement, although the Romantic period was perhaps the time when all these roots Perhaps we should not find this so unusual. For met and the discipline began to crystallise. most people would also be hard put to name one classical, modern, neo-positivist or post-modern However, any shock generated by the above affirm- scientist. For the majority of our society, the image ation is unnecessary to say the least. While true of science is that of a phenomenon without a histo- that in layman’s language the term ‘romantic’ has ry or, at most, with a history presented in terms of come to mean prone to sentiment and novella-like, indefinite progress, forever moving in the same and nothing could be further removed from a sci- well-defined direction, from which but a handful of ence –a body of methodically ordered doctrine heretics stray from time to time. Indeed, the image constituting a given field of knowledge, yet, any of science conveyed by academic and scientific in- reasonably well– educated person realises that this stitutions and by scientists as a collective in gener- is not what is meant by Romantic literature, music al is an anti-historic image which divests science of or painting, or Romantic philosophy. He or she will, its past development and ‘cleans’ it of any possible to some extent, succeed in relating names such as impurities associated with its origins, providing an Chateaubriand, Schiller, Lord Byron and Espron- image of a coherent, definitive body of theories, 7 CONEIXEMENT I SOCIETAT 11 ARTICLES knowledge and techniques –solid, free of fissures demic norms, that the work is by its nature unfin- and devoid of history. Or if it has history, it is a histo- ished and always liable to further modification, ry with a set purpose, endeavouring since its in- the title tends to be interpreted in the sense of ception to reach the point it now occupies, a view THE vegetation or THE fauna (as if unique and which ignores the inherent contingency of any phe- cast in stone) of a given location, now and for nomenon developing over the course of time. One ever. The work however is merely an abstraction need only look at how any scientific manual pre- of the given moment in time in which the work sents its subject matter. Subject areas are never re- was written and published (dates that rarely co- lated to each other in terms of how discoveries in incide), and of the methods used in studying or one area stimulated research which led to further gathering data.