Why Universities?
uMajor corporate
research laboratories of significance have mostly faded away (a few exceptions!), so who is going to do
the work?
uConsortia take too
long to assemble and often have very high infrastructure investment costs
vUniversities can be seen as the “choice of last
resort”
uUniversities are
attractive to very smart people from around the world—at all ages
uUniversities usually
have a broad range of human capital representing
many different disciplines
uIf they do it right,
universities can form the neutral, research commons—the “DMZ of Research”
uIdeally, a global
network of universities, inspired by a common set of grand-challenge “uses” (e.g. energy, education,
communicable diseases),
could “hold” the global community needed to address such Great Works of the 21st Century—but
that’s another talk!