Davydd Greenwood and Morten Levin (2000) argue in favour of structural changes in universities. They argue that universities have become dissociated from their main role, service to society. Universities are defined as autopoetic organizations.

[Autopoetic refers to the] self referential and self-generating character of a social situation in which a narrow group of socially interdependent individuals generate standards for each other and judge each other's performance without regard to their contextualization within the interests of society at large (p.104).

As an example of how universities have imposed barriers to working with society, Greenwood and Levin discuss the peer review process as one of the professional structures built into most academic mechanisms that serve the perpetuation of the system⁶. As an alternative, they suggest the inclusion of external stakeholders as an integral part the evaluation processes.

The challenges of combining two worlds

What the above authors share is a notion that academic practices do not encourage the work of university researchers with community groups. Practices that reward particular kinds of achievements encourage researchers to carry out individual research projects that do not necessarily serve or establish connections with any community group.

Some authors (Cancian, 1996; Stoecker, 1996) refer to two different worlds, academia and community, outlining some of their differences, for example different deadlines and writing styles. Academics who want to engage in collaborative research with community groups are torn by two different worlds with very different institutional reward systems. Francesca Cancian defines activist research.

[Activist research] promotes social change, explores inequalities and it is for powerless groups. Academically based research, on the other hand, aims at increasing knowledge about questions that are theoretically or socially significant. Therefore sociologists who do activist research and want a successful academic career have to bridge 'two conflicting social worlds' (1996, p. 92).

⁶ The Social Sciences and Humanities Council describes peer review as the universally recognized, "most objective and effective way to allocate public research funds." (http://www.sshrc.ca/web/about/about_e.asp, August, 31, 2004)