Innovation and the Economy

G. Wayne Clough
President, Georgia Institute of Technology
Before the Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education
February 2-3, 2006

Higher Education:
Driving the Innovation Economy

Dr. Wayne Clough

President, Georgia Institute of Technology

Commission on the Future of Higher Education

February 2, 2005
Driving the innovation economy
¾ Trends in higher education

¾ The changing global environment

¾ The role of the university in the

innovation economy
¾ The changing shape of the
university
 Trends in higher education
¾ Enrollments in science and engineering
programs are not keeping pace.
¾ University science and engineering
faculty are aging.
¾ R&D investments in science and
engineering shift from federal (frontier)
to industry (applied).
¾ Funding model for public higher
education is changing.
 U.S. engineering degrees
1974-2004
80,000
70,000
Bachelor’s
60,000
50,000
40,000
Master’s
30,000
20,000
Doctoral
10,000
0
7 4 7 7 8 0 8 3 8 6 8 9 9 2 9 5 9 8 0 1 0 4
19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 20 20
American Association of Engineering Societies 2004
U.S. outstripped in doctoral degrees
in natural sciences and engineering

NSF Science &

Engineering
Indicators 2004
 University faculty with doctoral
degrees in science and engineering

NSF Science &

Engineering
Indicators 2004
Research balance shifts

NSF Science & Engineering Indicators 2004

 Output of science and engineering
articles
Other nations in
the Organization
for Economic
Cooperation and
Development are
outpacing the
United States.

NSF Science &

Engineering
Indicators 2004
 Funding patterns are changing
¾ Higher education loses out in the state funding
competition with K-12 education, health care,
prisons.
¾ Public universities seek more autonomy in
exchange for reduced funding.
¾ Rising tuition, limited state/federal need-based
assistance reduces accessibility.
¾ Competition for outstanding faculty in critical
fields drives up costs for research universities.
“To an extraordinary degree, our nation’s fate
depends on maintaining our world leadership in
science and technology. Our superpower status
is tied to it… Yet young people in the Western
industrialized nations, especially in the United
States, are not flocking to study science and
technology like their counterparts in other
countries.” Daniel Yankelovich, founder and CEO
Viewpoint Learning, Inc.
Public Agenda
DYG, Inc.
Societal forces
¾ Growing population
¾ Fresh water shortages
¾ Terrorism; wars in Iraq,
Afghanistan
¾ New diseases
¾ Global warming,
environmental problems
¾ Coastal development
Engineer 2020
Global warming + coastal development

Levees and
flood walls
Hurricane Katrina were
August 29, 2005 breached
and over-
topped.
Economic forces
¾ Internet/high-speed
communications
¾ Markets have opened up
¾ Emergence of technology-
based economies in other
nations
¾ Sustained investment in
higher education in countries
like China and India
Engineer 2020
 The competition grows fiercer
¾ By 2010, 90 percent of the world’s scientists and
engineers will live in Asia.
¾ The US has increased nanotechnology research
funding to $1 billion a year, but Western Europe
and Japan have kept pace, and other nations
are also making significant investments.
¾ 6 of the world’s 25 most competitive IT
companies are headquartered in the US; 14 are
headquartered in Asia.
The United States must learn to
compete in a world in which…
¾ The largest technological workforces
reside in other nations.
¾ We generate only one of four or five major
inventions.
¾ Our wages and health care costs are
higher than our global competitors.
¾ The domestic market we offer is very small
in size compared to Asia.
 “The scientific and technical
building blocks of our economic
leadership are eroding at a
time when other nations are
gathering strength…
We fear the abruptness with which a lead in
science and technology can be lost – and the
difficulty of recovering a lead once lost, if
indeed it can be regained at all.”
Rising Above the Gathering Storm
The National Academies
 National Innovation Initiative www.compete.org

“Innovation fosters new ideas, technologies,

and processes that lead to better jobs,
higher wages, and a higher standard of
living. For advanced industrial nations no
longer able to compete on cost, the capacity
to innovate is the most critical element in
sustaining competitiveness.”
InnovateAmerica
National Innovation Initiative report
 Innovation is critical to meeting the
nation’s goals:
¾ National security
¾ Economic prosperity
¾ Environmental sustainability
¾ Treating and preventing
illness and disease
Challenges and opportunities
¾ The bar for innovation is rising
Z Multi-disciplinary and complex
Z Diffusing at an increasingly rapid pace
Z Collaborative between creators and users
Z Global in scope
¾ Appropriate balances are more critical
Z Between competition and collaboration
Z Between security and openness
Z Between nationalism and globality
Z Between analysis and ambiguity
Universities and innovation: 101
¾ Educate the workforce
of the future
¾ Conduct frontier
research that provides
discoveries and
knowledge
¾ Promote technology
transfer
 Universities and innovation: 201
¾ Interdisciplinary
collaboration
¾ IT networks
¾ Policy expertise
¾ Openness and diversity
¾ Research infrastructure
sites
¾ Nexus for ideas
 Universities and innovation: 301
¾ Innovation-based
experiential learning
¾ Going global
¾ IT-enhanced learning
¾ Interdisciplinary
teaching and learning
¾ Accelerated
commercialization of
new technology
Engineer 2020

Educating a new breed of engineer

¾ Strong analytical skills
¾ Practical ingenuity, creativity; an
innovator
¾ Understanding of the larger social
context of technology
¾ Global perspective
¾ High ethical standards,
professionalism
¾ Dynamic, agile, resilient, flexible
¾ Lifelong learner
¾ Adaptive leader
New opportunities for undergrads
¾ Undergraduate
research
¾ International
experience
¾ Communication skills
¾ Teamwork
¾ Leadership
¾ Recognition of new
learning styles
New IT applications
¾ Web enhanced classes
¾ Information commons
¾ Interactive online classes
¾ Distance learning
¾ National LambaRail
 Commercializing discoveries
¾ Bayh-Dole Act
¾ Clear path to
commercialization from
research labs
¾ Incubators, enterprise parks
Taking technology from lab to market

Georgia Tech’s
VentureLab

UC San Diego’s von

Liebig Center for Entre-
preneurism and
Technology
Advancement
 Going global
¾ Competition, but also
collaboration with others
around the world
¾ Research partnerships
¾ Dual degree agreements
¾ Interactive/real time
distance learning
 Promoting global education
¾ Clearing the way for international students to
study in the United States (visa, H1-B issues)
¾ Increasing American students studying abroad
¾ Addressing the “deemed exports” issue
“We must work aggressively to find new and effective ways
to market the depth and diversity of American education
overseas and to engage more of our schools in the
international arena.” Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes
U.S. University Presidents Summit on International Education
Co-hosts: Sec of State Condoleezza Rice, Sec of Education Margaret Spellings
“The emerging global university
is set to be one of the
transformative institutions of
the current era.”
“The brains business”
The Economist, September 2005