This paper begins with a brief review of some antecedents that led to the current configuration of the world, particularly about what happened to the idea of nation and nation-state and the revolution of the general values in the postwar years and its rapid erosion in recent decades. Then it analizes the constitution of nation-states in the postcolonial world and the dream of modernity. It continues with an analysis of the transition from the field of “national” science in the nation-state regime to the delocalized research networks of the current phase. Subsequently it refers to the new global governance and the emerging forms of scientific and technical research. It concludes with some reflections on what is needed in the future in order to achieve a form of research that responds to the real and not cosmetic challenge of the co-design of knowledge, through the different existing borders in our unequal world, in real processes of co-construction.