UNIVERSITY PROSPECTS 172 From the Humboldt University to a Third Generation University Model BY J.G. WISSEMA Higher Education Policy is being discussed in almost every country in the world. This is caused by a number of fundamental changes that force univer- sities to reconsider the Humboldt university model and subsequently public policy. This paper argues that current changes will result in a completely new model for universities, labeled the ‘Third Generation University’. Policy measures should be based on such a model rather than being ad-hoc reac- tions to individual drivers of change 1 . The Humboldt or Second Generation University What came to be known as the modern scientiic method had its roots in the early Renaissance. Still, it came as a breakthrough when Wilhelm von Hum- boldt, the Prussian enlightenment philosopher, founder of modern linguis- tics, diplomat, and minister of education, founded the University of Berlin in 1810. While the University of Paris, founded in 1200, became the role model for the Medieval or ‘First Generation University’, the University of Berlin had enormous inluence on the development of academia in the 19th and 20th centuries and the term Humboldt University came to denote the science- based university model 2 . Humboldt persuaded King Frederick William III to found the university on the basis of the liberal ideas of the philosopher Schleiermacher, who stated that: “the function of the university was not to pass on recognised and directly usable knowledge such as the schools and colleges did, but rather to dem- onstrate how this knowledge is discovered, in order to stimulate the idea of science in the minds of the students, to encourage them to take account of the fundamental laws of science in all their thinking” 3 . The Humboldt or Second Generation University (2GU) model that gradually emerged can perhaps be characterised as follows: Threat or Opportunity? 1 This contribution is partly derived from: J.G. Wissema, Towards the Third Generation University – Managing the University in Transition, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009 (translated into Polish, Turkish and Macedonian). 2 Hammerstein, N., Epilogue – Universi- ties and war in the twentieth century, in: Rüegg, W., (editor), A history of the university in Europe, Volume III, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004. 3 Ruegg, W., Chapter 1 – Themes, in: W. Rüegg (editor), A history of the university in Europe, Volume III, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004.