Summary New ways of thinking and new ways of approaching joint learning, research, and services are essential if a university is to bring to fruition its desire to not only strengthen science, technology, and engineering but to reenergize its academic value. To enable innovation, leadership must first identify and then quantify its existing technological assets. It can then determine ways to enhance its capabilities by finding a fit with outside resources: private investors, corporate partners, and other institutions desiring partnerships with the university. New areas of research will allow faculty and students to participate in emerging markets while building on their core strengths. These emerging markets will ideally have societal benefits and create new value in the market place.

Develop Collaboratories Most large universities face challenges posed by collaboration and communication in a digital age. The classical model of an academic institution-- disciplines within which are discrete departments with their own specific and focused expertise and information--requires finding new ways to fully network and integrate the potential professional and social processes and techniques within the system. Technologies such as Skype, TelePresence, Twitter, Virtual Worlds, iTunes, chat rooms, instant messaging tools, and others have created both formal and informal communication channels that are defining new norms, principles, values, and rules. These same tools will define future modes of learning. Employing those mediums could lead to a series of collaboratoriesi that enable researchers to co-create new ideas, or students and their professors can jointly develop new processes that enhance teaching and learning. The use of collaboratories can strengthen the links within and across research-based educational experiences. These approaches can also enhance a university's desire to reach for new knowledge and ideas beyond campus walls to the communities they want to serve and the governments they would like to collaborate with. By synchronizing new disruptive technologies with new approaches to joint ventures, the institution can realize its potential to be holistic and creative.

Demonstrate Creativity

Modern engineering depends on scientific research, and science depends on creative design and engineering. (Thomas C. Skalak, Richmond Times Dispatch March 12, 2009)

As the statement above suggests, fundamental to science, technology, and engineering is the power of creativity within these specializations and the blending of creativity across disciplines. The seeming dichotomy is also carried out in broad labels such as the "division of arts and sciences," as if they were disparate entities--a concept underscored by the notion of humans having left or right brain dominance. Thus we refer to these areas of learning as if the two were distinct and separate, yet generating new ideas has always required that scientists use mental and social processes that intermingle existing knowledge with discoveries. Creativity is fueled by conscious or subconscious insight that leads to a revelation, maybe startling, but more often a gradual process that opens new vistas of understanding and produces a new idea, concept, or process. These need not be limited or constrained by the parameters of an academic discipline. Both employ the intangible we call vision, and with vision comes creation. To achieve a stronger brand and develop greater capabilities in science, technology, and engineering, a university could bring these technical areas together with disciplines such as the humanities, business, law, and medicine under the umbrella of the creative process. Applying the concept of creativity to science, technology, and engineering requires allowing the barriers to fall and opens up greater understanding of how creativity plays into all processes.

From a scientific point of view, the products of creative thought use divergent thinking and are usually considered to have both originality and appropriateness. The problem is that the sciences and engineering have become so specialized--and their practitioners so focused on a product--that the scientist's ability to transcend expertise and cross into new areas is limited. Faculty committed to a specific discipline must see and experience the blending of creativity--not only within but also across their domains. The use of case study method is one way to demonstrate what could be, while using disruptive collaborative tools coupled with policies that encourage creative risk taking. To illustrate: Aerospace engineers are developing wind turbines for clean energy because the aerodynamics because the disciplines have overlapping constructs. Consider also that the information technology (IT) network known as broadband in the United States has parallel aspects with the smart grid energy network. In Huntsville, Alabama, for example, the power grid transports broadband access to remote areas using a disruptive technology Nortel Networks captured from the IT industry. The crossdiscipline approach of power transmission and IT transmission harnesses old technology for new applications and creates a new way of realizing what is possible. The future of the United States will require a hybrid of problem-solving skills in multiple disciplines, an art that will rely heavily on creativity and imagination to spawn innovation.

Encourage Innovation Those who envision and apply innovation often disrupt societal norms. Innovative people or organizations can create chaos, and the larger culture tends to prefer the comfort of stasis. No organization, however, is better positioned to embrace innovation than a research university--from which change is expected. These institutions can develop mechanisms that reward risk taking, encourage innovation, and foster pioneering behavior, especially among students. It is when ideas are applied and add to the benefit of the culture that we determine the behavior as good. New metrics for measuring innovation and societal benefit must be defined, quantified, and applied with rewards at the end for those successful risk takers. With a society immersed in technology, isn't it clear that we need new ways of recognizing, fostering, and measuring the value of innovation? Computers and other IT technology enhance knowledge by enabling the rapid blending of ideas and providing hybrid constructs from multiple disciplines. With new tools that can transcend distinctions between areas of knowledge, now is the time to create the mechanism that will bring about greater opportunities for collaboration.

Encourage and Reward Deal Making Although in some academic circles, business deals are viewed as antithetical to intellectualism, even pure research and lofty ideas must be supported by money. With the decrease in educational funding and other categorical government support, universities today must rely on making deals outside their walls to underwrite their endeavors. To this end, deal making must be encouraged and rewarded within the parameters of high quality research and scholarly excellence. Trustees or boards of governors or whatever leaders control decisions could define the parameters of deals they find acceptable for the university to engage in. A deal to co-develop research with the Department of Defense night vision laboratory, for example, has societal value, especially if there is shared financial reward from this effort, particularly if it improves American defense capabilities.

Establish Deal-Making Parameters and Processes Deal making requires complex negotiations and clearly defined steps. Included in this process are term of contract, desired deliverables, schedules, cost, warranty, and scope of work within a service agreement. These issues may be settled one at a time, with the final agreement being the sum of the sequence of smaller agreements. Or all issues may be discussed at once, in no apparent order, with concessions made on all issues at the end of the discussion. Cultural norms and the personalities of those involved will probably define the character of the deal. In all cases, if a university wanted to increase its level of deal making, faculty and administrators would need to understand what gives the deal its quality, the required parameters to negotiate a deal with flexibility, and the level of client communication and relational support to ensure that the relationship that follows the deal-making event remains strong. Faculty and students alike must learn and practice enhanced negotiation and relational skills. If a corporation has a negative personal experience with a faculty member or student, the experience could damage chances for partnerships and further deals between that entity and the university. Therefore, demonstrating, encouraging, and measuring the success of a deal is required, with a metric of success defined at every level of the process.

Translational Research The National Institutes of Health (NIH) defines translational research as research designed to improve human health, whereby scientific discoveries must be translated into practical applications. According to NIH, such discoveries typically begin at the bench level with basic research--scientists studying disease at a molecular or cellular level-- and ultimately progress to the clinical level, the patient's bedside. The character of translational research as practiced at NIH is a paradigm that could and should be brought to the science, technology, and engineering domains of academia. Corporations also expect translational research, and universities taking this approach have enhanced their ability to make deals with potential corporate partners. For translational research opportunities to emerge, faculty research expertise and interests need to be matched with those of major companies, and the companies' needs for basic to applied research must be defined. This can be accomplished with an integrated database that uses relational data elements to match opportunities at a finite level--similar to a Google search with research-related meta tags that link opportunities. Targeting companies that are well established and have well-defined core business verticals is ideal for faculty to develop longstanding relationships to support their research. Many companies also have established federal government and international contracting vehicles that can leverage additional resources for university faculty. Larger companies will also have existing relationships with smaller companies such as those the federal government today prefers to support: those owned by veterans and those owned specifically by wounded veterans, HUB Zone companies, and smaller minority-owned companies. These secondary company relationships with larger companies, if leveraged, could contribute to university core values of diversification while giving research efforts essential financial support.

Take Inventory of Technological Assets and Facilities Developing an inventory of assets and facilities and defining these assets within the university community is critical. The inventory should include all computational modeling, simulation, visualization, broadband, and laboratory equipment and spaces. The aggregate of these assets can be defined and possibly rebranded as a new technological unit or core capability. All visualization tools in the medical, humanities, and engineering communities can be branded as having "visualization capability," for example. Tools in this category may be 3-D visualization tools for sonograms or virtual environments for architectural renderings of buildings. Few universities have a holistic view of their assets and market them as such. Most commonly, these assets remain defined within silos and are used only for discipline-specific purposes. By redefining assets and facilities in this manner, university leaders can determine missing elements or technologies that need to be optimized, integrated, or augmented with outside resources--without unneeded duplication that dilutes the value of those resources.

Create the Vision By developing an inventory of assets and facilities, and through the use of online collaborative tools that allow researchers to know what assets exist campus wide, a faculty will be better able to see the interrelationships between what they have and what they do in their spaces and what could be done across labs as joint research ventures. A comprehensive strategic plan to unify or integrate systems can be married with outside government or corporate resources and facilities. This collective technological approach will allow for a full analysis of capabilities of server clusters, storage, visualization, network architecture, and other investments. Additionally, a community-wide analysis could be integrated into this vision. Through deals, corporate partners and companies with master agreements with universities outside their region can augment facilities to compensate for technological inefficiencies. These terms can be defined in service agreements or through master university/corporate agreements. Additionally, other universities can jointly share assets and facilities and thus strengthen each other as they add value to their own scholarship efforts. New creative university policies should be considered to encourage this level of joint venture, openness, and risk taking.

New Areas of Research It is inevitable that new and emerging markets will continue to proliferate. Once an inventory of assets and facilities has been defined, possibly aggregated, and rebranded, new assets from corporate sources and other universities can be parlayed to support these innovative scientific and technological markets. These growing markets will likely include energy, health care, conservation, government policy, computer gaming, online environments, modeling and simulation, and many others. By 2020, the economy will be even more globalized and will have transitioned away from fossil fuels. That transition will demand massive investment in a new, intelligent energy distribution infrastructure as well as investments in intelligent systems that adapt their energy use intensity to time-ofday costs. Energy systems and intelligent buildings will be key areas of concentration.

New Ways of Leading in a University Environment It is clear that higher education at all levels will need to adapt to changing careers, especially in the next 5 to 10 years, and policies that support faculty risk taking and innovation should be valued and supported. By developing a series of case studies that demonstrate deal making and resource leveraging, an institution can lead faculty to collaborate effectively and cross boundaries at the same time it maintains departmental reputations for excellence. Institutions should continue to define policies that support collaboration between faculty and corporations and use new tools and new paradigms that support this collaboration. Working with high quality businesses for research collaboration will enable the building of additional bridges. Resources can be secured through the use of master agreements, long-term relationships, and shared assets. Many universities today view the redefining of intellectual policies that support free interchange of ideas as essential. New ways of developing research relationships will also enable a free exchange of ideas that benefit society, with innovation becoming a measureable core value. Translational research should enrich student and faculty experiences as it increases societal, customer, and producer value. Innovation that leads to increased productivity is the fundamental source of increasing wealth in an economy. To accomplish these goals, leaders should declare a commitment to encourage creativity, foster innovation, and develop ways to create business relationships. In so doing, it will strengthen not only its research capabilities, but its efforts will ultimately support the greater good of humanity.

Dr. Carole Cameron Inge is Director of the Modeling and Simulation Center for Collaborative Technologies at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and founder of the Virginia Clean Energy Business Incubator, a spin-off of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden Colorado. She has been involved in technology policy for twenty years at the national, state and local levels and served as founding board member for the Mid-Atlantic Broadband Cooperative, a $106 million start-up designed to lay 800 miles of carrier class fiber optics to rural communities, one of the first of its kind in the nation. Our website is www.virginiaenergynetwork.com

i A collaboratory is more than an elaborate collection of information and communications technologies; it is a new networked organizational form that also includes social processes; collaboration techniques; formal and informal communication; and agreement on norms, principles, values, and rules.--Cogburn, D. L. (2003). HCI in the so-called developing world: What's in it for everyone? Interactions, 10(2), New York: ACM Press, page 86.