This paper examines various ideas and data for the debate on the production of social knowledge in the current global context, taking into account several factors: the comparative weight of sociology in Spanish, American, and British university studies,, the relative dispersion and remoteness that the social knowledge that we produce could have in relation to relevant current problems and causes that can explain them, the influence of social knowledge and the institutional power of sociology to enforce it, the importance of think tanks as a global phenomenon, including their role and limitations in the production of social knowledge in competition with university centers, the differences between the German and Anglo-Saxon model, and the situation of Spanish think tanks in the international context.