Broadening the Agenda for Scholarship and Research

USC Challenges

• Culture of Excellence: Expectation that Every Faculty Member is at the Forefront of His/Her Field.

• PhD/Postdoc Program that attracts the best students, and the best placements.

• Pervasive Innovation: Education, Research, Clinical all Recognized for Being New and Fresh.

Office Activities

• Center for Excellence in Research

• Direct/active Support for Funded Research

• Small Grants to Initiate Collaborative Research

• Support for Initiatives that Build University Strengths

• Financial Support for Core Shared Labs

At the Core, We Must beInnovative in How We do

Research

What to Avoid

Measurement

More Measurement

“For Universities, the challenge will be ensuring that scholars who are making more and more of their material

online will be fairly judged in hiring and promotion decisions”

New Media

Journals

Sharing

Networked Collaboration

What Technology Can Do

• Information distributed & shared, quickly & cheaply

• Easier to find and retrieve desired information• Easier to expand research networks well beyond

home institution• Automated methods to assess relevance and

significance of information & sources• Archives can be dynamic, interactive and

collaborative

Effects

• Fast

• Collaborative

• Changing

• Individualized

Our Traditions

• Peer reviewed print publications.

• Recognition of individual accomplishments, as viewed by others.

• Focus on one’s own (sub)discipline or academic department

• Contemplation

The Question

In our new world, how can universities best:

• Expand Knowledge

• Use Knowledge to Benefit Society

Do University Traditions Stand in the Way of Our Mission to Expand Knowledge, for the

Benefit of Society?

Manifestations

• Future of academic publishing• Nature of the library• Components of a tenure/promotion dossier• IT infrastructure to support collaboration• Academic units that span physical space• Shared laboratories and experimentation• Measures to assess impact and

significance