The university has until recently been considered the main centre of knowledge production. The processes of internationalization and globalization, as well as progress in information and communication technologies, have considerably shifted the environment for universities, with the emergence of new types of knowledge providers.

Autonomous public policy research institutions identified as “think tanks” (TTs), sometimes presented as “universities without students”, challenge recognized universities and compete with them for financing and attention of the policy-makers.

On the other hand, as universities need to show their social and economic appropriateness to governments, they create university-based research institutes conducting policy-relevant research, i.e. trying to construct a bridge between the academic and policy worlds. The coincidence of their goals signifies the shifting character of the boundaries between universities and TTs, which results in increasing organizational hybridity.

With this regard, this study aims at analysing the phenomenon of boundary crossing between universities and TTs in Europe in which policy analysts experience transition between their work roles within their organizations.

The chosen research question is relatively new in the field of European studies. European TTs have only recently begun to captivate more comprehensive attention of scholars, despite the fact that European TTs are becoming more plentiful, more prevalent and more powerful.

The study of the issue of self-identification of the individuals consecutively or simultaneously working across boundaries of these two types of institutions represent a fruitful tool to compare universities and TTs in Europe, because it shows how TT representatives perceive distinguishing features of their organizations in comparison with universities.

As a conceptual framework we apply a “three against one” model, proposed by T. Medvetz.

Policy analysts uses particularly four aspects of their activity to describe their own mission: the academic scholar, who produces reliable knowledge corresponding to generally accepted standards of rigor and intellectual independence; the policy assistance, who should be acquainted with the norms, procedures and temporalities of policy world; the entrepreneur, who should be an effective merchant in conditions of competitive marketplace, and the media specialist, who should communicate research findings in an accessible form to the different audiences.

Nevertheless, what may initially seem as a quadrilateral striving for academic, political, entrepreneurial, and media impact appears, on closer examination, to have a dual frame.

It could be explained by that fact that the objectives related to three of the four roles: political influence, financing, and media visibility could be simpler agreed with each other than they can be adjusted with the aspiration to academic devotion. Political influence, for instance, is frequently favorable to the publicity of a policy analyst, which may for its part beneficially contribute to his or her ability to raise funds. The purpose of academic rigor, conversely, more frequently requires for some extent setting apart from economic considerations, independence from political supervision, and comparative apathy towards media visibility. Therefore, overlaying the quadrangular frame of the policy analyst’s mission could be presented as a principal contrast between intellectual credibility and temporary authority.

Obviously, majority of policy analysts cannot really meet both requirements; however, TT fellows try to keep a delicate balance between both of them. The controversy between intellectual credibility and temporary authority is an integral part of the “professional spirit” of the every policy analyst.

Separation of roles on which policy analysts build their self-perceptions is a useful but possibly delusive analytical method. This is since not many TT representatives are satisfied to choose only one of the above mentioned roles. In place, they partake a professional tradition based on the purpose of learning and playing all four, carrying on an everlasting struggle to transit between their multiple conflicting roles.

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