This contribution shows challenges and consequences of a production of knowledge in a new mode (Gibbons et al. 1994) for scientific research and teaching in a specialized university that interlinks professional knowledge and academic knowledge into a new mode of joint knowledge production. Central constructs underlying this approach are the concept of the reflective practitioner (Schön 1983), the concept of action research (Lewin 1948; Moser 1995) and the concept of a certain mode of production of knowledge as explicated by Michael Gibbons, Helga Nowotny and Peter Scott (Gibbons et al. 1994, Nowotny et al. 2001; 2003). Different features are attributed: context of application, heterogeneity and organizational diversity, social accountability and reflexivity, and multiple ways of quality control. This approach questions to some extent the traditional ways of academic knowledge production linked to disciplinary routes and division of fundamental research and applied research. As a consequence, the role of the university changes and it transforms into a networking and interconnected institution. Furthermore, the concept of reflection and reflexivity as linking academic and professional knowledge in news way becomes the central paradigm in such an approach (Barnett 1990).

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