Universities are social technologies for the production of universal knowledge. (See universalism versus relativism.) Historically they have been distinguished from other advanced training centres by their institutional autonomy. That alone has placed universities periodically at odds with the surrounding society. It represents a dynamism most clearly expressed in the university's dual role as producers and distributors of knowledge, via its joint research and teaching functions. This ideal was updated in 1810 by Wilhelm von Humboldt, the first rector of the University of Berlin. Anticipating by a century Joseph Schumpeter's definition of the entrepreneur as the “creative destroyer” of markets, Humboldt conceived of universities as engaged in an endless cycle of creating and destroying social capital (see social capital versus public good), that is, the comparative advantage that a group or network enjoys by virtue of its collective capacity to act on a form of knowledge. Thus, as researchers, academics create social capital because intellectual innovation necessarily begins as an elite product available only to those on the cutting edge. However, as teachers, academics destroy social capital by making the innovation publicly available, thereby diminishing whatever advantage was originally aftorded to those on the cutting edge. In this respect, the university is naturally a dispenser of epistemic justice and the enemy of intellectual property.

However, if the university's research and teaching functions are not integrated, the results can be perverse, as credentials depreciate as more people seek them.