The network is the pervasive organizational image of the new millennium. In our everyday lives, a multitude of networks – communications networks, infrastructure networks, and financial networks, to name only a few – have become central to the way we work and live. In an important comparative study, the sociologist Manuel Castells argues that ʹas a historical trend, dominant functions and processes in the information age are increasingly organized around networks. Networks constitute the new social morphology of our societies, and the diffusion of networking logic substantially modifies the operation and outcomes in processes of production, experience, power and culture.ʹ¹...

We are interested in knowledge networks in part because of what they tell us about new forms of global organization and communication in the wake of the revolution in information technology. Fluid, horizontal networks are a different type of structure from either hierarchically organized states or global markets. As information technology multiplies the possibility of networks of exchange, it is important to understand how networks work in the shadow of states. Evaluation of the five knowledge networks examined in this volume should suggest at least the broad outlines of possible relationships among networks and hierarchies. How autonomous are networks from...

Initially conceived as an instrument for bringing scientists and medical practitioners from Israel to Canada for specialized training, the Canada International Scientific Exchange Program in Otolaryngology (CISEPO) gradually expanded its mandate and membership in innovative and challenging directions. CISEPO illustrates the way in which social relationships embedded in a network enable policy entrepreneurs to join seemingly unrelated agendas – in this case, medical research and peace-building – and sheds some light on the social foundations of policy change. Specifically, CISEPO shows how personal research partnerships may develop into more extensive and formal institutional relationships between members of different communities and...

The Coastal Resources Research Network (CoRR), coordinated from Dalhousie University on Canadaʹs east coast, reaches out to interact with natural scientists, social scientists, NGO workers, and local communities in island and coastal regions around the world. From its original sharp focus on biotechnical aspects of mollusc culture, CoRR blossomed over time into an interdisciplinary forum merging a range of concerns related to social and economic, as well as technical, aspects of coastal resource management, with a special emphasis on the needs and roles of coastal communities. The experience of CoRR reveals how the network as an organizational form allows, and...

During the seven years of its operation, the Global Urban Research Initiative (GURI) was the largest urban research network in the world. Coordinated from the University of Torontoʹs Centre for Urban and Community Studies, it brought together top urbanists from twelve subregions in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East to research policy-relevant urban issues and to discuss and disseminate their findings through meetings, workshops, international conferences, and the publication of research papers and books. The network received substantial, sustained funding from the Ford Foundation, as well as financial support from the World Bank, IDRC, and CIDA. It also...

In 1988 an international group of adult educators met at York University in Toronto to talk about how to integrate adult education and environmental issues. They believed that, although the environment was becoming an increasingly important concern, the adult education movement had not yet begun to grapple with environmental questions. A special effort was needed, they felt, to bring together environmental issues with the techniques and theories of adult education. Out of this discussion, the Learning for Environmental Action Program (LEAP) was born.¹

All the people who attended the meeting at York were either members of the International Council for...

Established in 1990 as the only social science network in the Government of Canadaʹs original Network Centres of Excellence (NCE) Program, the Canadian Aging Research Network (CARNET) conducted research to identify the social implications of an aging population. One of two NCE networks based at the University of Toronto, CARNET completed its mandate in 1996. Network members chose not to apply for a renewal of funding, despite having achieved their contractual goals and objectives. The experience of CARNET demonstrates the need for a less centralized, collaborative network structure with flexible funding arrangements that enable rather than constrain network members. It...

It is more than a coincidence that, as networks are becoming ʹthe predominant organizational formʹ for North-South collaboration in research and development, the larger relationship between the North and the South is also changing. On the one hand, factors connected with globalization seem to diminish the degree to which nation-states – in both the North and the South – are able to control economic and social activity within their own borders. Manuel Castells attributes much of the weakening of the power of the national state to global processes beyond the control of the state: ʹThe nation-state is increasingly powerless in...