editorially speaking Teaching, Research, Technology, and Higher Education I n 1981, Derek Bok, President of Harvard University, wrote that the university had a civic duty to ally itself more closely with private industry in a n effort to counteract foreign competition and improve productivity, a noble and patriotic position. Ten years later, writing in Universities and the Future of America (Duke University Press, 1990), Derek Bok suggested t h a t university-industry agreements have not been "an effective strategy . . . for allowing American companies to maintain a decisive lead over foreign competitors". In the intervening decade the National Science Foundation under the guidance of its director, Erich Block, made university-industry centers a cornerstone of its mission by establishing a host of engineering-research centers a t universities around the country. Industry's role was to contribute matching funds and to provide the expertise to commercialize the research results. States have also become involved in the process; a recent analysis indicates that 48 states now sponsor university-industry research programs with a n annual expenditure estimated in excess of one-half billion dollars. The gambit designed to improve American industrial productivity has clearly failed. State and federal support for industry, which was designed to improve productivity and competitiveness has, instead, freed up private capital to back such nonproductive activities a s take-overs, increased dividends, and stock buy-backs. The monies acquired by colleges and universities in this industrial collaboration have further exacerbated the natural tensions that exist in the academic world between teaching and research. The funds now available for academic research, cum technology transfer, are now highly focused on specific results, a condition that is generally not compatible with scientific research, i.e., the search for truth without concern for where it may lead. I t has been estimated that more than 1,000 universityindustry research centers exist a t about half that number of universities. Their missions span virtually all fields of science and technology. Industrial support extends from situations where research centers have been established on campuses that are directed a t industrially interesting technological expressions of basic science, to granting industry privileged access to research, to the establishment of industrial offices on campuses, to financing promising new ideas emerging from the laboratories of academic departments. These manifestations seem to be overwhelmingly one-sided. What benefits do these relationships hold for academe? Probably not much except for some shortterm graduate assistant support and increased overhead monies to support university operations. Indeed, some universities have themselves become venture capitalists in an effort to promote technology and to profit fmm it. Each of these kinds of activities diminishes the ability of universities and colleges to pursue their historic, long-term goals of producing educated people and new knowledge. These historic goals are in direct opposition to those that drive most modern American industry, i.e., the quick, bottom-line fix. Although the resources available through industrial support superficially may appear to affect only the research component of the academic endeavor, it is clear that the teaching component also has been significantly affected. The heady years of the 1980'8, when academic re-
search was supposed to answer everyone's R&D problems, were fueled bv a n increase in funding estimated to be about 120% oker the course of the decade. The lure of money and opportunity, not surprisingly, nearly doubled the ranks of university researchers. In retrospect, the rate of growth was too hizh to sustain even with generous rese&h support. ~ r i c h ~ l o has c k observed t h a t h v e r s i t i e s "face a leveling off of growth and cannot (seem to) come to mios with the& unfulfilled asnirations" Higher education has built research infrastructures designed to consume money, but the prospects for continued support a t the 1980's level are diminishing. Both federal and state funding aooears to be leveline off in real dollars. a s it bewmes increasingly clear that the university-industrv collaborations that once held so much oromise for solving the competitiveness problem are not proving effective. The problem is real but the proposed solution appears to have been misguided. Astudy by RichardFlorida and Mart i n Kenney (The Breakthrough Illusion: Corporate America's Failure to Moue from Innovation to Mass Production, Basic Books, 1990) concludes that the basic problem of commercialization cannot be solved through the formation of university-centered consortia because "the American corporate system is unable to transform scientific innovation into competitive products". Their analysis suggests that America's "competitive problem" arises because (1) most American corporations have separated their research laboratories from their factories. (2) American corporations generally have failed to nurture innovation amone factom workers. and (3) the over-emohasis on military Gplicati"ons has &eated a n environmeAt in which the cost-effective consumer-product lines aenerallv do not thrive. The 1980's have led us to an academic environment that is threatening our collective future. Universities have neglected the education of the new generations of scientists, although thev mav " have increased the oroduction of technologists. Universities have diminished the space historically provided for the free interchange of ideas. Universities have decreased their capacity to generate powerful new fundamental ideas. Science deoartments have encouraged the channeling of graduate'students into applied fields and awav from the more basic scientific endeavors. And, they havk been aided and abetted by the National Science Foundation, by their own state government agencies, by their faculty, and by their administration. As Pogo once said, "I have seen the enemy, and it is us". Let's stop and try to do the right thing. There are things that American academe can do right. Witness the ever-increasing numbers of foreign students coming to America for an education a t all levels. On the other hand, there are things that we simply are not capable of doing on a wide scale and that we should not even attempt to do, for examole. commercializine or transforming science into useful technology. A decadeof intrusion of Gternal forces on the historic strength of the American system of higher education has not produced the effect intended. It's time to let higher education return to the condition of "natural tension" that exists between teaching and research without the added burden of research associated with technolow J& transfer.
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Volume 69 Number 1 January 1992
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