The early years of the 21st century have found the U.S., Europe and Asia increasingly committed to technology-based innovation as the road to economic prosperity. Every CEO has had a catchphrase to this effect on his or her tongue. Etsuhiko Shoyama of Hitachi says “Ceaselessly Innovate”, and Sam Palmisano of …
Singapore: Successful in Research, Striving for Innovation
Across the World, governments subscribe to the thesis that investment in research is a worthwhile public good for a number of reasons. Such investments are generally predicated on the view that research will lead directly to innovation and, hence, to wealth and employment creation. This “linear” model is an over-simplification …
Community Engagement as Social Innovation
In 1992, Francis Fukyama reflected in The End of History and the Last Man on the transformative events signified by the collapse of the Berlin Wall. He argued that What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War,
KAUST: An International, Independent, Graduate Research University
Education, research and economic development are among the highest priorities established by King Abdullah for Saudi Arabia. An equally important overriding priority for him is the development of women for greater participation in the workforce. According to UNESCO, women make up 58% of the total student population of Saudi Arabia, …
Learning in/for a World of Constant Flux: Homo Sapiens, Homo Faber & Homo Ludens revisited
The educational needs of the 21st century pose a number of serious problems for current educational practices. First and foremost, we see the 21st century as a time that is characterized by constant change Educational practices that focus on the transfer of static knowledge simply cannot keep up with the …
INTRODUCTION: Respice, Prospice Higher Education A Decennial Review
If “[a] week”, as the late British Prime Minister Harold Wilson once pointedly remarked, “is a long time in politics”, so also, a decade is a long time in higher education. It represents the graduation of two or three generations of students. It reflects the subtle influence of changing scholarly …
Industry as a Catalyst of Innovation
Success today hinges on our abilities to harness human potential, combine creativity with new knowledge and ensure economic impact is quickly derived from money spent on research. U.S. strength continues to lie in the ability to master innovation, but the future increasingly depends on our ability to also collaborate,
Research and Innovation in Latin America
While Latin America has achieved relative economic stability and growth over the past decade (37.7% for 1998-2008), as the global financial struck the productive sectors of the economy through a drop in demand from the industrialized countries, declining remittances from abroad and falling commodities prices, in 2008 it grew 4.3%. …
Injecting Relevance to make Innovation more Impactful at Universities
After a short tenure in teaching at universities, I have pursued an entrepreneurial career since 1980. Nine years ago, when I joined the MICorporation in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I got reconnected back to the academic world. Together with other like-minded individuals at MIT, I have been experimenting with ways in which …
Curiosity and the Transformative Impact of Fundamental Scientific Research
Starting with the rise of Silicon Valley in the 1960s and 70s, the different stakeholders associated with U.S. research universities have emphasized and nurtured the relationship between scientific research and technological innovation taking place at these universities and economic development. The perceived importance of this relationship was reinforced by
Transforming an Economy through Research and Innovation
In the race to diversify their economies beyond oil and gas predominance, several Middle East Countries are moving to develop “knowledge-based” economies. Higher education, particularly in technical areas, and innovation are seen as key to making that transition. New higher education institutions are being built
Team Players to Shape our Future: Do our Students Learn the Right Skills?
Education is the key for success and welfare of a country. Figure 1 shows the correlation between the wealth intensity and the number of citations in scientific journals. Switzerland is among the top nations. It has a special, so-called dual education system (Figure 2). From age 16 onwards, the majority …
On Innovation Strategies: An Asian Perspective
Innovation has become the buzzword of the 21st century and even more so now after the current economic meltdown, as nations around the world have the enormous task of rebuilding their economies. It is generally agreed that innovation refers to the process of converting an idea, invention or scientific discovery …
Summary of University Research for Innovation
The first session began with the observation that it was precisely a century ago, in 1908, that Schumpeter introduced the terms “innovation” and “entrepreneurism” into economics at both the University of Vienna and Harvard, which, together with Lausanne (near Glion), comprised the centres of economic theory at the time. Over …
Innovation strategies of European Universities in the Triangle of Education, Research and Innovation
In Europe, the first university started in Bologna in 1088 as “universitas magistrorum et scholarium”, a community of teachers and students. Its legitimacy was derived from a humanistic program; its activities consisted in providing general and professional education. As an example of the mission of a medieval university,
New University Paradigms for Technological Innovation
In today’s global, knowledge-driven economy, leadership in innovation is essential to a nation’s prosperity and security. In particular, technological innovation — the transformation of new knowledge into products, processes and services of value to society — is critical to economic competitiveness, national security and an improved
The Research University as Comprehensive Knowledge Enterprise
While the Glion Colloquia have brought university leaders together to exchange perspectives on an array of critical issues confronting higher education, perhaps none is more imperative to consider than the role of the research university in an innovation-driven society. Research universities are the primary source of the new knowledge and …
The Next decade, a Challenge for Technological and Societal Innovations
About 25 years ago, the world entered a period that we can call — although it is not brutal or quasi-instantaneous, but progressive — a revolution, which is rooted in political and economic, as well as scientific and technological forces. This revolution has brought increasing prosperity to the developed world …
Universities and the Innovative Spirit
As we approach the end of the first decade of the new millennium, it is useful to review the road that our global community has travelled. The dawn of the new millennium was a time not only of celebration, but also of optimism and hope. Contemplating the remarkable transformation of …
BILDUNG and Innovation — a Contradictio in Adjecto for Today’s University Education
I do think that the terms Bildung and innovation can be contradictory, at least they express the inner conflict felt by a person, who is responsible for change in an institution — the university — and therefore for innovation and, at the same time, knows how frequently and in what …