Knowledge Society is a term to describe societies which are economically and culturally characterised by a high degree of dependency on their potentials to create scientific and technological knowledge. Based upon the data-processing technologies in the information age a typical element is using knowledge strategically as a factor of economic competition among nations as well as among companies and services inside nations.  In an economical view knowledge societies invest in the education and training of people in order to build up resources of human capital which should enable them to fulfill expectations to perpetuate traditions and more important use the knowledge to develop innovations. Important principles in a knowledge society are networking among knowledge producers, effectiveness in applying, controlling and evaluating, and learning. In order to distinguish differences in quality of knowledge and knowledge institutions, there is a high interest in ranking educational efforts. The social status of individuals is strongly dependent on the degree of their educational achievement. As an expression of late modernity knowledge societies is characterized by a reflexive conscience about the constructional and methodological processes. 

This text is drawn from www.goete.eu/glossary