The University institution as an autopoietic system

The article, starting from a definition of the university system considered as an institution based on self-constituted cultural premises, draws attention to the main problems that the university has nowadays to solve. In particular, its basic characteristics consolidated in the past, as the place of the university at the summit of the educational process, its ability to combine research as well as advanced training, and its capacity to issue generally recognized certificates to those who have completed such training processes, are in more recent times increasingly discussed and are no longer correspondent to the sociological context. Consequently, the traditional model of university, based on a self-representation of its past, a self-legitimation of its functions, and a set of programmes which autonomously defines the basic criteria for its decisions, appear connected to a temporal horizon more and more unsuitable to the emerging needs of a society dominated by different perceptions of time.