Field asymmetry and the struggle for epistemic authority in industry–university collaboration

Industry–university collaboration is commonly framed as a coordination problem of incentives and networks. This article argues that a more fundamental issue concerns who holds authority over academic knowledge boundaries. Drawing on field theory developed by Pierre Bourdieu and institutional change theory associated with Wolfgang Streeck and Kathleen Thelen, the study develops a relational framework distinguishing structural power from epistemic authority in collaborative research governance. The article identifies four configurations: epistemic subordination, parity, contestation, and enclosure, each specifying mechanisms through which industry engagement reshapes the autonomy of academic knowledge production. Illustrative cases from the UK Research Excellence Framework, Germany’s Excellence Initiative, and China’s industry–education integration policy demonstrate how collaboration can either sustain or erode epistemic diversity within universities. The framework advances a power-sensitive sociology of knowledge governance and challenges the symmetry assumptions embedded in Mode 2 and Triple Helix accounts of university–industry relations.