Research Universities and the Public Good: Discovery for an Uncertain Future by

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In a political climate that is skeptical of hard-to-measure outcomes, public funding for research universities is under threat. But if we scale back support for these institutions, we also cut off a key source of value creation in our economy and society. Research Universities and the Public Good offers a unique view of how universities work, what their purpose is, and why they are important. Countering recent arguments that we should "unbundle" or "disrupt" higher education, Jason Owen-Smith argues that research universities are valuable gems that deserve support. While they are complex and costly, their enduring value is threefold: they simultaneously act as sources of new knowledge, anchors for regional and national communities, and hubs that connect disparate parts of society. These distinctive features allow them, more than any other institution, to innovate in response to new problems and opportunities. Presenting numerous case studies that show how research universities play these three roles and why they matter, this book offers a fresh and stirring defense of the research university.

FORMATPaperback LANGUAGEEnglish CONDITIONBrand New Author Biography

Jason Owen-Smith is Professor of Sociology, Executive Director for the Institute for Research on Innovation & Science (IRIS), Barger Leadership Institute Professor and Director, and Research Professor in the Institute for Social Research, Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan.

Table of Contents

Contents and AbstractsIntroduction: Knowledge, Infrastructure, and the Need for Change chapter abstractState divestment in public campuses and stagnant federal funding put research universities in a position where maintaining their complex mission requires them to rely more and more heavily on institutional funding to support research and public service. This unsustainable funding model is being cemented at a time when skepticism about academic research and higher education is high, when austerity rhetoric makes substantial public investment difficult, and when justifications for universities emphasize individual returns to education and the impact of single grants or research fields. These trends put research universities at risk by wedding their work more tightly to the market and its rationales. Understanding why this is dangerous and how to protect these important institutions requires a new, system level, network approach to universities and their research.1A System to Insure the Future chapter abstractThis chapter introduces three metaphors (sources, anchors and hubs) that organize the book. It demonstrates that current tools for analyzing, explaining and improving the work of research institutions are insufficient to the task. In order to ensure that publicly supported research universities remain the cornerstone of the national and global innovation system, it is necessary to develop a new model for understanding and explaining their work. That model focuses on collaboration networks, regional and community effects, and the inter-organizational connections that make universities into clearinghouses for problems and solutions from across society. An extended case study of Google's PageRank algorithm shows the surprising ways that federal research funding supported Google's development. It highlights the importance of focusing on research careers, multiple discoveries, and networks at many levels of analysis to understand how research universities and public support result in significant innovation and economic returns.2The Organization of Research Universities chapter abstractToday's universities were not designed to serve the roles that make them so important. They evolved through a complicated process kicked off by key federal policy debates in the early Cold War years. Those conflicts and their outcomes help to explain the organization of today's universities, their complicated missions and the ways their work is or is not associated with collective benefits. The chapter addresses their complicated financial models and organization, focusing on decentralization, on campus public goods, and tradeoffs across revenue streams. A proposed revision to that the University of Wisconsin system's shows how the institutional and organizational complications that make universities difficult to explain and evaluate contribute to their fertility. The key to understanding how universities consistently serve important purposes for society has to do with their conservative character (they are slow to change) and their innovative work (they are a preeminent source of novelty).3Sources of Discovery: Networks on Campus chapter abstractChapter 3 starts with the process of innovation. The discovery of new things (or new ways of doing old things) often results when existing pieces of knowledge or technology are combined in new ways. The smart phone touch screen pioneered by Apple provides a key example. Universities are continual sources of new discoveries because of the collaboration networks that grow on and across campuses. Those networks are diverse, balanced, and complex. Understanding how they work in order to have a chance to change and sustain them requires attention to the process by which they grow and reproduce themselves. A high-profile book in gender theory helps to illustrate the point. The chapter concludes with a detailed discussion of original qualitative research that uses human embryonic stem cell science to illustrate the ways that federal research funding plays a key role in the process of collaboration and the networks that result.4Community Anchors: Building Resilience and Connection chapter abstractPublic support and the particular features of universities make them important anchors for communities, economies, industries, and regions. The anchor metaphor has three components. Universities add resilience to the things they anchor because they are stable, conservative, and geographically fixed. They help set the tone of their regions by acting as anchor tenants. The positive externalities created as they pursue their work make it easier for other types of organizations and communities to locate near them and succeed. Finally, they function as network actors whose commitment to openness and the public good allows them to pursue their own interests without exerting control over their products. That work means they can serve as a convener and meeting ground for many different constituencies. In that role, they strengthen connections among partners providing a scaffold for generative networks to grow. A case study of Napa Valley wine illustrates the point.5Hubs Linking Communities: Generating Solutions for Known and Unknown Problems chapter abstractUniversities are hubs connecting far flung parts of society and they economy. In doing so they create shortcuts between different sectors, industries and communities. Being a hub makes universities good sources because it insures that problems and opportunities flow to them from many different parts of the world. It also makes them a target because their work touches on and influences some of the most important parts of society. Universities are hubs in two senses. They are network hubs because flows of people and knowledge to and from campus connect them to partners in all precincts of society. They are institutional hubs because their multiple missions and wide range of fields mean that most domains of contemporary life depend on their products. Case studies of the breast cancer gene (BRCA1) and the MIT Media Lab integrate and illuminate the various aspects of this important metaphor.6Facing the Future Together chapter abstractChapter 6 describes how the system of research universities keeps our nation and the world poised to benefit from "unknown-unknown" opportunities and to respond to unforeseeable threats. It also calls for rigorous but local experimentation to improve research universities' ability to do this work. Such experiments should be guided by shared principles and informed by a research infrastructure that turns the academy's best science on itself. Academic responses to the recent outbreak of Zika Virus and the development of a new and powerful genetic technology (CRISPR) anchor the first portion of the chapter. Policy recommendations for expanded federal funding and a revitalized federal-state partnership enhanced by private sector engagement are offered.

Review

"A well-argued, data-rich defense of the irreplaceable role of American research universities—not only in science, engineering, and education, but in our national life. Now, more than ever, we need this book's deep appreciation of research universities' power to be sources, anchors, and hubs for 'beautiful accidents' in learning and innovation." -- Kei Koizumi * American Association for the Advancement of Science *"In this book, Jason Owen-Smith integrates innovative with previously disarticulated data to measure the outputs of our nation's research universities, institutions that prepare us for an increasingly complex future. In so doing, he compellingly reveals the mechanisms and pathways that produce positive societal results." -- Mary Sue Coleman * President of the Association of American Universities *"Less than 3% of all universities conduct 90% of funded research. This important book offers a careful, empirical account of how these research universities work – and their crucial contributions as anchors for communities, regions, and industries, and hubs for flows of knowledge and social connections. This is important reading not just to understand higher education, but to understand America's future." -- Craig Calhoun, University Professor of Social Sciences * Arizona State University *"Research Universities and the Public Good provides a strong argument for the importance of research universities...Presenting numerous case studies that show...why [research universities] matter, this book offers a fresh and readable defense of the American research university."––Maryann P. Feldman, Academe"The current discourse on universities, which narrowly conceives of them as mechanism for delivering degrees to students, desperately needs the message that Owen-Smith delivers here....[A] powerfully framed contribution to the literature on U.S. higher education" -- David F. Labaree * American Journal of Sociology *"This book is a timely reinforcement of the importance of research universities based on the public value they generate....[It] should interest researchers and policy makers concerned with innovation, growth, and how we can best address global challenges of the future." -- Anna Valero * Journal of Economic Literature *"In this beautifully crafted book, Owen-Smith explores the critical and central role that research universities play in the modern economy....This book should be of great interest to both policy makers and academic researchers interested in understanding the research university's role in modern innovation ecosystems and in our economy and society more broadly." -- Wesley D. Sine and Xirong (Subrina) Shen * Administrative Science Quarterly *

Long Description

In a political climate that is skeptical of hard-to-measure outcomes, public funding for research universities is under threat. But if we scale back support for these institutions, we also cut off a key source of value creation in our economy and society. Research Universities and the Public Good offers a unique view of how universities work, what their purpose is, and why they are important. Countering recent arguments that we should "unbundle" or "disrupt" higher education, Jason Owen-Smith argues that research universities are valuable gems that deserve support. While they are complex and costly, their enduring value is threefold: they simultaneously act as sources of new knowledge, anchors for regional and national communities, and hubs that connect disparate parts of society. These distinctive features allow them, more than any other institution, to innovate in response to new problems and opportunities. Presenting numerous case studies that show how research universities play these three roles and why they matter, this book offers a fresh and stirring defense of the research university.

Review Quote

"This book is a timely reinforcement of the importance of research universities based on the public value they generate....[It] should interest researchers and policy makers concerned with innovation, growth, and how we can best address global challenges of the future."

Details ISBN1503615030 Short Title Research Universities and the Public Good Pages 232 Publisher Stanford University Press Language English Year 2020 ISBN-10 1503615030 ISBN-13 9781503615038 Format Paperback Publication Date 2020-11-10 Subtitle Discovery for an Uncertain Future DEWEY 378.007 UK Release Date 2020-11-10 Place of Publication Palo Alto Country of Publication United States AU Release Date 2020-11-10 NZ Release Date 2020-11-10 US Release Date 2020-11-10 Edited by Christopher E. Swide Birth 1974 Affiliation European University Viadrina, Germany Position journalist Qualifications Ph.D. Author Jason Owen-Smith Series Innovation and Technology in the World Economy Imprint Stanford Business Books,US Alternative 9781503601949 Audience Professional & Vocational We've got this

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