In this essay in comparative analysis five historically and culturally distinct cases of elite higher education are presented as imperfect realisations of the ideal of academic freedom – medieval universities, early Islamic madrasas, Ottoman palace schools, French grandes écoles and “modern...

I examine and document how the Endless Frontier changed the research landscape at universities and how universities responded to the initiative. I show that the agencies it established and funded initially recruited research proposals from faculty and applications from students for fellowships...