'What Ifs' for America's Research Consortia

Perhaps at no time since the Second World War has there been such an emphasis on the rapid transfer of research findings to development. The 1980s have seen the birth of dozens of research consortia designed to quicken the pace of technological development in the United States. Coming from a wide array of businesses and varied academic institutions, these R&D consortia are seen by many as the answer to the United States' regaining the lead it has lost in technological competitiveness. In The New Alliance: America's R&D Consortia (Ballinger, 1986), Dan Dimancescu and James Botkin describe the workings of 14 such consortia. In this excerpt from the book, they discuss the potential future of these consortia. "What if …," said [John] Linvill [co-director of Stanford University's Center for Integrated Systems]. "Ask that question in the conclusion of your study." What if these consortia do succeed? What if their numbers continue to proliferate? What are the prospects? Marc Tucker [director of the Carnegie Forum in Washington, D.C.] views the advent of research and development consortia with a cool dose of practicality. "If you were to look at these consortia as the principal instrument for adjusting to the problems that we face economically, I would have to say: 'Ridiculous.' They don't begin to get at the larger problems that we face. On their own terms, though, they are incredibly valuable contributions." His observation opens the question of whether the scale of the response represented by industry-university consortia is commensurate with the sense of threat to survival felt by American industry. One Hundred Consortia Bloom... An appropriate response would have to alter the behavior of our institutions—education, government and business—to reflect the technological transition our economy and working life have experienced. In this sense, consortia, although still few in number, portend a potentially significant trend. They signal a fundamental realignment of our institutions. Universities—particularly the leading 100 research institutions—in partnership with industry and government are moving to fulfill a technology agenda directly affecting regional or national economic development. This is happening to a far greater degree and with greater sense of urgency than at any time since World War II. The reason is simply that an unprecedented post-war period of wealth creation— when the United States was essentially the only show in town—was followed by a steady erosion in productivity starting late in the 1960s. The first answer, then, to the "what if' question is that more consortia, properly capitalized and led, could well serve to accelerate the move toward a national technology agenda. This raises immediate questions of national policy. Should the federal government—following the recent lead of numerous state governments—not put substantial resources to work to fuel this trend? If the evidence we put forth offers a tentative answer and if the NSF Engineering Research Centers program, although modestly funded, provides a federal mechanism to build on, then the answer should be yes. A shift in national priorities, in contrast to the basic research federal agenda of the post-World War II decades, should stress the importance of collaborative technology initiatives. A nationally inspired effort to think out a technology strategy—conceptualized by the president's science adviser and Office of Science and Technology—might stimulate the creation of many more R&D consortia. What would be the right number or technical focus? One hundred may be a target number in complementary fields. What would be the right amount of money? Two to 3 percent bf a bloated defense budget, or about $5 to $10 billion, redirected to economic ends, might do the job. That means an investment of about $50 million to $100 million per year per consortium. These new efforts would serve to eliminate an immense amount of duplicated and costly research in selected industrial fields. A corollary to the question "What if there were more consortia?" is "What if they were focused on integrated or interdisciplinary problem-solving teamwork?" If a majority of today's and tomorrow's consortia are university based, can we not expect them to serve as more than what is described as "impedance managers?" If the problems of our times, many of them technologically complex, call for integrating disciplines in resolving them, should our academic institutions not follow suit by diminishing the relevance of intellectually entrenched departmental disciplines? A student or practitioner narrowly versed in finance or electrical engineering or Shakespearean literature must become equally adept at integrating knowledge between seemingly disparate fields. Such a proposition should not be equated with advocating no disciplines. Rather, it is the power of any one department to limit intellectual boundaries through narrow degree requirements or shortsighted penalties for faculty crossing into new fields—not to speak of working on industry problems— that is challenged. Indeed, if history serves us, it is in reminding the academic community of the radical changes instituted by making the "mechanical and agricultural arts" respectable fields with the birth of the land grant college system more than 100 years ago. As we near the 21st century, the time has come for similar radicalism in reconstructing the "departmental intellect" of universities. Consortia are providing a vital, if not unexpected, impetus for academic constraints to be overcome through interdisciplinary or integrated research. One Hundred Management Experiments Are Sown... While the subject of technology transfer leads in a variety of directions, the most critical may be that somewhere along the way U.S. managers haven't kept pace. The imperative of change implicit in technology transfer in a global economy has been overshadowed by financial criteria in measuring corporate success. It isn't so much that we've lost the magic of creating new ideas or new technologies. We still do that very well. Rather, it is that ideas no longer flow into the marketplace as rapidly or effectively as in the past. What's worse is that others are doing it better. A big part of American enterprise, despite flurries of best-selling management books and myriad change consultants, still coasts on pervasive organizational philosophies matured over more than eighty years out of Tayloristic "scientific management." Part of the price of this evolution is that it has built structures, habits and reflexes that inhibit the flow of information. What results is that new knowledge is overlooked or is not transferred to maximum economic benefit. What if 100 consortia, whether initiated by industry, academe or government, induced 100 experiments in finding a new system of management appropriate to a knowledge-driven economic age? For this to happen effectively, the relationship between new technologies and new management philosophies will have to become a centerpiece of current or future consortia. It is not enough, otherwise, to superimpose new technologies on outdated management structures. If America is involved in toughened global competition that pits management skills against one another, a quantum leap must be made in inventing better concepts of organization. That leap has yet to be made. Knowledge is going to have to be treated as a strategic ingredient with information as its raw material; financial experts are going to have to learn the particularities of laboratory scientists; engineers are going to have to talk to non-engineers; technologists are going to have to mediate relationships between makers and users of knowledge-intensive tools; and business schools are going to have to stop producing M.B.A.s only superficially prepared to cope with new technologies and their strategic implications. What if consortia are the experiment that leads to a new system of administering our economic future? They may indeed become, as Linvill states, "important beyond our highest expectations." Dimancescu is a consultant on technology and policy as well as senior lecturer at the Thayer School of Engineering and the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. Botkin is a consultant to government, industry and universities. The address for both is Technology and Strategy Group, 50 Church St., Cambridge, MA 02138.

'What Ifs' for America's Research Consortia

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