Functional transformation of universities: an assessment on literature

There is broad literature on the impacts of universities as well as classification studies carried out taking into account the methods and approaches used in these studies. However, no assessment based on a global and a specific country agenda is available. In my opinion, the historical review of the mass literature on the universities’ impacts will provide important insight into the functional transformation of universities. University institution is a result of social production influenced by social development processes as well as the need to shape them. In this study, the literature on universities’ impacts was assessed according to the language criteria. The studies conducted on the impacts of the universities in English -which is today’s lingua francaand in Turkish, to represent the local level, are classified based on their contents and dates. It is designated that universities have undergone a functional transformation over the years. Besides that, there are similarities and differences encountered in studies in English and Turkish. The Type 1 studies, which reveal the expenditure impacts of university, have been started in English since 1960s and in Turkish in the 1990s. As for Type 2 studies, which are related to Knowledge impacts of the university, it has been determined that there is a historical parallelism.