  Organized knowledge production can then be considered as the codification of
communication. Communications leave traces that can be studied as indicators.
Institutions can be considered as retention mechanisms functional for the
reproduction of ever more complex, that is, scientific and knowledge-based,
communications. The focus on communication enables us to operationalize the
research questions in terms of indicators by using the mathematical theory of
communication. The combination of two theories with a very different
status--i.e., a combination of theory and methods--enables us to update and
inform empirical hypotheses about how the knowledge base transforms the
institutional relations of an increasingly knowledge-based society. Policy
implications are specified.
