On November 6, David Munson, Dean of Engineering at the University of Michigan, gave a strategic speech to all advisory boards of the College, comprising well over 100 industry leaders and alums, outlining strategic emphases of the College of Engineering for the next decade. The title of the speech was “The imperative for societal impact”, focusing on a topic often considered beyond the realm of a leading University.

The speech focused on four aspects that relate to societal impact: 1) Access – the necessity of students from all backgrounds to get an excellent education at the University of Michigan; 2) Sustainability – the change of thinking about energy and environment in engineering overall, from the next-generation cars to energy in the developing world; 3) Health care – the necessity of tackling this topic bottoms-up which has severe problems today and reinvent a better system 4) Economic impact and Entrepreneurship – the education of our students to become leaders and educate people who will start businesses and turn things around.

I strongly resonate with the statements given by the Dean and particularly with the last point of emphasis on entrepreneurship and economic impact. This, in fact, is what I consider the core of my job as Associate Dean for Entrepreneurial Programs.

When analyzing this strategic emphasis during the past days, the shear magnitude of the task has become evident to me. To take the conclusion up front, I don’t know yet how to fully achieve success and excellence in the pursuit of entrepreneurship and economic development as part of a strategic mission of the College of Engineering.

Upon more detailed analysis of this strategic objective, it appears that success seems to be associated with four important challenges.

Challenge 1) How do we make entrepreneurship a core part of our Engineering curriculum? Any success related to our students will depend on our ability to empower their entrepreneurial thinking and to give them the tools they need to experience entrepreneurship – whether that is as part of a class in Biomedical Engineering, as part of the Solar Car Team, or as part of a dedicated entrepreneurial practicum.

To get the necessary scaling, we cannot just depend on the last two tools – extracurricular activities and dedicated entrepreneurship classes. Key elements of the entrepreneurial mindset – about risk-taking, about leadership, about marketing inventions, and about the importance of customers – have to become part of who we are as a College of Engineering. This in no way undercuts the deep foundational education we want U-M to be characteristic of, but it supplements it in a comprehensive way.

This will put Michigan in a unique position. Michigan Engineering would become Olin College scaled up by a factor of 10-50! Olin, is a huge leader in this field and we are wise to listen to their lessons learned! In fact, a lot of work is happening in this field, and is led by Professor Holloway, my colleague and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education.

Challenge 2) How do we include entrepreneurial activities into our educational process, especially at the graduate level? Many of our graduate students are researchers who have unique skills and very deep knowledge. They, to a large extent, carry the promise of our entrepreneurial potential. They are as part of inventions as faculty, often probably even more innovative than many professors. And, most of them move away from the University when they are done. It is often said that the best vehicle for technology transfer is a moving van, and that’s especially true for graduate students.

Some of our best successes (i.e., Mobius, HandyLab, etc.) are linked to successful and entrepreneurial graduate students. But, when chatting with these students, it is often obvious that they were successful despite us and not because of us here at U-M.

This is in my estimation one of the most difficult challenges we face, especially in PhD programs. PhD educations are all about excellence, about discovery, about unprecedented and deep understanding of topics at hand. It’s really an educational process designed to educate the next Professor in a top university, and many of our students in fact follow that career track. Yet, the majority of our PhD students do not, and they end up pursuing careers in industry, national labs, or other environments. Many of these PhDs tell me that they need a broader context of engineering than they have received as part of their education – the relation to markets, to customers, to suppliers etc. We need to do something here – but what?

In general, training programs for graduate students have to be much focused and create win-win situations for PhD advisors and PhD students. Otherwise, it is very hard to motivate them to attend. How do we give our students these important pieces without in any way distracting them from what makes them excellent?

Challenge 3) How do we incentivize entrepreneurial activities in our tenure, promotion and performance evaluation processes? The success of research universities is approximately the sum of success of individual faculty as teachers and researchers. They can be successful in various environments, and we want the very best of them to be right here at the University of Michigan. That’s in no small part why the tenure system is of use to universities to hold on to their talent – the primary purpose of tenure being the protection of academic freedom.

This tenure system provides a very important overlay on this third challenge. It encourages in many ways the opposite of what entrepreneurship is about. Tenure decisions are decisions which are extremely risk-averse. We never, ever want to end up with a tenured professor who is sub-standard!

These performance standards fall into three categories: research, teaching and service. The research performance is generally judged by peers of the same field; teaching performance is judged by students; and service is category that summarizes things like: congressional testimony, committees that drive the national agenda, etc.

So, where does entrepreneurship and economic development fit in? My promotion to full Professor may be a good example. I was already running the College’s Entrepreneurship Initiative, one of the most exciting things I have ever done, with success that in many ways dwarf other things I have done. This was a very minor part of my promotion – I think there was a single mention under service. This is not because the committee did a bad job, it’s because the process was not set up to include this kind of activity. Promotions and performance evaluations tend to follow a similar process.

Right now, professors who are entrepreneurs can successfully involve themselves in entrepreneurial activities using one of two strategies: they do entrepreneurship activities on top of their regular work – after fulfilling all the other criteria, or, they use empowered graduate students to perform entrepreneurial work.

That said, it is possible to combine research and entrepreneurial objectives, such as done by Professor James R.  Baker or Professor Stephen R. Forrest (listen to his talk). But, these are the minority right now, certainly at the University of Michigan. Not everyone can be a Professor Baker or Professor Forrest, but we need people who have that potential to step up and go after their entrepreneurial goals.

So, how do we have to change incentives and processes in the University of Michigan to enable that type of behavior? There is a good rule I learned as a leader: to zeroth order, you get what you incentivize or actively encourage. That’s also the case here at the University of Michigan.

Challenge 4) How do we adjust our rules and processes to boost entrepreneurial outcomes? Even the strongest runners can only clear a finite number of hurdles and still win the race! I don’t believe that a focus on rules and processes should be our primary focus, but I think it is critical to have a look at these rules and processes and ask whether they are still up to date.

Rules and processes dominating entrepreneurial interchange represent a compromise between values. On the one side, the University needs to be protected from harm, such as liability, etc. On the other hand, the University needs to ensure success of its entrepreneurial objectives. A tighter and more conservative set of rules and processes is likely safer for the University and likely creates less entrepreneurial outcomes, and vice-versa.

Therefore, a shift in strategic emphasis as the one outlined by Dean Munson has to be followed by an assessment of rules and processes. If we want to have a major enhancement in entrepreneurial outcomes, we need to think about this as well. Rules and processes and their implementation are related to outcomes. Perhaps we have to go back to the Board of Regents and re-define some things.

I have been lucky to spend quite some time with several members of the Board of Regents and know that they are equally passionate about this and that they understand that connection. Some of them probably understand them better than we do and are ready to have that discussion.

In every meeting on education and teaching somebody gets up and talks about the tremendous importance of “real-life experiences”. It is obvious from most of these statements and presentations that these experiences are few and far between – especially for the average engineering student.

But, the most important consequence of such work is the implied presence of engineering experiences that are not real-life – they are somehow entirely academic in nature, entirely made up, with little emphasis on what engineering is really about.

This is a huge puzzle to me and may point to an underlying issue that needs to be addressed with urgency. In fact, because of the very nature of engineering disciplines, focused to address opportunities and problems in the real world, engineering experiences are real-life.

Consider, for example, the civil engineer who is doing a calculation of wind loads on a bridge. What’s real-life about that? I still remember the movie about the Tacoma bridge now on YouTube. The bridge is swaying in the gale and the amplitude of the oscillation becomes bigger and bigger. And then, there is this guy who is trying to save his dog’s life from the car. And then, the bridge collapses in a total disaster! Wind load calculations are definitely real-life experiences!

I have talked to students studying aerodynamics, or controls who do not think that there is a direct relation to these problems with real life.

I was in San Antonio recently and stepped out of the building to attend a teleconference. I was not aware of the fact that I stood right in the approach direction of the Airforce base located there. After a few minutes on my teleconference, a C-5 Galaxy was flying right over my head, shutting down my ability  to listen for a couple of minutes. I looked at the plane in its landing configuration and admired its sheer size, and its aerodynamics. The plane has over 100 metric tons of cargo capability, and a wing area of over 6000 square feet – just amazing! It can take off with a weight of almost 350 metric tons! I also started thinking about the parts not visible to the eye: the amazing avionics system in the plane which keeps analyzing the plane’s performance in over 800 control points, and the electronics that makes that plane run. That’s engineering in the real world!

One of the most important strengths of engineering is the very fact that it focuses on real life! Engineering is about saving lives, about bringing people together, about landing on Mars, about fixing people’s hearts and knees when they start failing.
But, apparently, often enough, classroom experiences do not project that sense of importance and empowerment that comes from being an engineer. What can we do to keep engineering education real-life? Here are a few strategies I have developed over the past decade of teaching:

•    Address today’s engineering and science problems. We sometimes miss opportunities in the classroom about the relevance of the class discussed to today’s news. Why not pick examples that matter today? I am still sad thinking of the binder all grad students in a particular Department were using. Many of the sheets were yellow and very, very old, over 30 years old. But, there was an almost 100% probability the final exam would be entirely composed out of contents from this binder. That is a huge exception, I have learned, and I am glad for it!

•    Use today’s engineering tools. There is a reluctance by some to use CAD software and modern computational tools in engineering classes, especially at the undergraduate level. Yet, these tools are expanding tremendously the set of solvable problems and provide opportunities to compute things today. That’s especially the case for fields like fluid dynamics or electricity and magnetism. I am all for learning analytic tools, but we are short-changing our students if we pretend that’s the way most problems are solved.

•    Focus labs on problems somebody really cares about. Here, I am not talking about introductory labs. I am focusing on advanced labs. So often, problems addressed there are virtual, and the results are quite often shallow. One of my biggest transformations of my teaching happened when I learned the power of real problems, and real solutions. “Real” here is defined by somebody who is part of the project. It could be a company who wants to explore a new product, or understand a problem one of its current products has. It could also be a group of disadvantaged people whose lives can be transformed by the solution the student group is working on. Somebody really has to care about success; the problem has to be important! The moment this happens, the project can either be a success – or, it can be a failure. Virtual problems can almost always be tweaked so the end-result sounds like a success. Engineering projects are not always successful! Success comes from the satisfaction from the interested party, not just from a good effort!

Most importantly, engineering in the real world is personally engaging. If there is anything that distinguishes engineering in the real world from empty technical exercises, it is that the engineer is personally engaged, personally committed to success, because she understands that the solution to the problem really, really matters!

The amazing achievements of entrepreneurs are fueled by a motivation often unmatched in others, but the deep underlying source for that motivation is highly variable.

Interestingly enough, the prime motivation for entrepreneurs is almost never money. Of all entrepreneurs I talked to – and there have been hundreds – only two of them mentioned the prospect of money as a key motivation. All the others did not think that money was a crucial part of their choice to become an entrepreneur. Most entrepreneurs answer one of two ways: they have become entrepreneurs to make the world a better place, or they have become entrepreneurs to make people’s lives easier. These are very simple but very powerful statements.

Making the world a better place? That sounds like a huge goal. But, that’s exactly it. Entrepreneurship is not about a goal purposed by an individual. It’s about changing the behavior of many. It takes courage to say something like this, but that’s what entrepreneurship is all about. Many people think about this, few of them talk about it, and the entrepreneurial leader does it!

This is most powerful when talking about social entrepreneurship. I attended a presentation recently when somebody was introduced as “a person whose invention saves 1000s of lives”. I was blown away. I have done pretty cool stuff – there are devices flying in space that my team dreamed up and that have made remarkable first measurements in various places of our solar system.

That day, I envied that entrepreneur – thousands of lives! The device he developed, by the way, was some kind of low-cost surgical tool used in heart-surgery all over the word. “Thousands of lives.” – how empowering!

Improve people’s lives? I have been thinking a lot about two speakers of this semester’s distinguished innovator series. Both, Mr. Aaron Dworkin and Mr. John Barfield were very much driven by this motivation. In many cases, such a motivation is fueled by a deep sense of incompleteness or injustice that may characterize the youth of such entrepreneurs. They are very motivated to change their life and in so doing, they change the life of many others. They know about people they touch, they care about them deeply. Clearly, entrepreneurship is an emotional journey!

There is another motivation that can be highly powerful, but is not often talked about: fear of failure. Some of my very best and most successful friends achieve because they were told that they are unable to do so. There are two sides to this.

On the one hand, these are entrepreneurs who have fought their way out of a hole—they have undergone an incredible journey. Ten years ago they were picking fruit in China, today they are powerful innovators; they went to school in one of the most challenging districts in an inner city, and they are now highly successful.

On the other hand, such people are often plagued by the deepest insecurities and angst. Many will never understand. I know that from my personal experience. There are still nights when I wake up in panic, thinking that all the happiness in my family, all my professional success, everything I care about today – everything was just a dream. But, that makes me one of the most driven people around.

I still remember how the teachers of my high-school thought that people in my village, mostly made out of farmers were “… just too dumb!”, and they treated us like that. I remember how one teacher tried to talk me out of a university career: “Thomas, but you have to be very smart!”. Guess what, I was very smart, but he failed to recognize it because of his prejudice.

Today, that also makes me one of the most open-minded people around. I don’t have many pre-conceived ideas and conclusions about people. I see the drive in the eyes of some of our students! They are not going to fail. They are going to prove to the world who they can become! And, just like a running-back, they will keep their legs moving, even though they are bumping into things! They may fall, but they will get back up.

As a side note, that’s in part where the tremendous success of immigrants come from, especially immigrants from Asia. They are taking the chance that is given to them, and they will not stop achieving. That’s also the feeling I get talking to some of our US students who made it out of broken families, out of broken schools. I admire their courage and determination. I know how it feels to be ill-prepared for school – it’s like running after a train that keeps speeding up. It’s great to see how they won’t slow, how they find friends who reach out and help, and how they create success stories for the ages.

There are many reasons to become successful as an entrepreneur. But, some of the most important motivators for entrepreneurial success have very deep roots. We may not like to talk about them, but it is very important to know what they are and how they affect our behaviors. That’s how we can learn how to take the hand of cards we were dealt and do the absolute best with it.

This talk was given as part of a panel on Globalization of Education as part of the PanIIT 2009 conference on Entrepreneurship and Innovation in a Global Economy.

I work at the University of Michigan’s College of Engineering. This is an exciting place! We just accepted close to 1300 freshmen and 300 transfer students who start their professional careers there. Of the nearly 8200 students we now have, 2700 are at the graduate level. We are a public University, something that is very dear to my heart. I am the first university graduate from my family, and the only reason I could achieve that is because of an excellent public school and university system. This is one of the key properties we share with IIT, but there are three more which make our programs very much comparable.

First, like many of the Indian schools, the University of Michigan, and especially its Engineering College, accepts an important role that reaches well beyond a traditional research and teaching mission of a great US University. We are located in the State of Michigan, the epicenter of some of the most dramatic and fundamental transitions since the industrial revolution. Michigan is part of a global transformation, and these changes are extremely difficult to fathom. The unemployment rate in Michigan is around 15%, and the unemployment rate in Detroit is nearly 30%, probably even being underreported. Detroit is seeing a flight of people heading out and looking for work, leading to an overall decay. For example, the median house price in Detroit this May was $7500. The result is a much stronger focus onto our University. In fact, I have not seen a single state-wide recovery plan in which the University of Michigan is not a crucial piece. Thus, at the University of Michigan, we understand the pressure and the opportunities that come from being a part of a transformation of the overall environment.

Secondly, this transformation has important effects in the thinking of our students- nearly 60% of our students are from Michigan. The most important effect this realization of importance has had in our students is the awakening of a tremendous passion for entrepreneurship. In our Engineering school we are very careful to not equate entrepreneurship with business creation. We think of entrepreneurship as a mindset of creating, finding new opportunities, taking and managing risks and taking personal responsibility for change. We have been the home of the largest entrepreneurial idea competitions in the US. We are in contact with nearly 3000 students who are pursuing such ideas or are thinking about them actively. Last year alone, we were supporting and following nearly 100 student startup companies, and we are still finding new ones. Our programs are not just driven by business generation focused on regular businesses. We have at least as much activity going on in social entrepreneurship. Our students and faculty are trying to invent ventures that add value and change people’s lives, especially the lives of the disadvantaged and poor.

Third, our students recognize that there is a strong connectivity between the local and global environments and changes. Any engineer in the future needs to be comfortable with having colleagues in all kinds of time-zones. This is also a University-wide priority and we expect that within two years more than 50% of our graduating students will have studies abroad. Our international programs are therefore rapidly increasing, and they are becoming a critical part of every student’s education in Michigan Engineering. We have rapidly grown our range of opportunities and inventory of programs and offerings. We also have attracted more foreign students to Michigan. Within the last ten years, the percentage of our graduate students from India has increased from nearly 7% to over 12%. But, we think we are nowhere near our expectations, especially when it comes to partnerships in India.  We currently have almost 500 Indian students in our Engineering College. Needless to say, entrepreneurship and international programs have a deep intrinsic connection.  Our students want to be part of real change, domestically and world-wide.

But, the reason we are actively participating in this activity today is that we want to propose and explore a partnership that is of crucial importance to both parties. We are not looking for ways to simply spread our name – we are looking for win-win solutions and partnerships. What are the key criteria we use to build such a partnership?

At the center of any such partnerships will be the students. We want these partnerships to offer learning opportunities not available on our home campus. We seek to challenge our students by taking them out of their comfort zone with respect to their culture, in their technical approaches and many other ways. We seek to build several layers of connectivity which are leading to win-win solutions. We are interested in sustainable, long-term relationships, not “touch-and-go’s”. But, most importantly, we are thinking of our international engagements as partnerships, not as programs.

I will provide an example, which is considered to be one of the best partnership programs between the US and China – the University of Michigan-Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute (SJTU). This collaboration transcends much of what people have tried over the years. The curricula were jointly developed to meet the needs of UM and SJTU students. SJTU has become the most important landing point for UM students and faculty. We had 144 Michigan students and well over 40 faculty members at SJTU, and we have about 165 SJTU students at UM today. Thus, we create student interactions in both directions, faculty interactions in both directions. But, equally importantly, we work with the same companies in Shanghai and the US, building bridges and research programs of unprecedented scope and organization. We are a better campus because of our SJTU collaboration, and our friends in China feel the same way about our collaboration.

So, how do we translate these lessons to an India partnership? I would like to propose that we do so by recognizing how similar the challenges relative to our entrepreneurial ecosystems really are. We seek to build a partnership focused on social entrepreneurship.  For both of us, the need for transformation, for change requires people with a broad view and an entrepreneurial mindset. We are actually running a class right now, together with our business school, in which we directly involve Indian students and also investors. Ultimately, the purpose of an engineering education is to build a better world. We can do that in our respective environments, and through a partnership we have to set up to create the type of win-win solution that makes all partners excited to create and ready for success because they are doing something real. Our students will get to know each other, collaborate, and dream up solutions which are far beyond what we can today imagine.

There is a lot of support for “bottoms-up” approaches to University Research. In its best execution, this research creates a fertile ground on which new ideas, new technologies and new solutions grow. Wonderful theses are written, new papers are published and talks are delivered. And, there are also uses to the research – sometimes anticipated, sometimes totally surprising– this research affects our everyday lives. Fundamental research creates some of the most amazing outcomes: the exploration of stimulated emission in atoms leads to the Laser; the solution of communication needs in an international experiment on elementary particles leads to internet protocols; and the exploration of semi-conductors leads to transistors.

There are many people, especially around universities, that are so focused on fundamental research and its benefits, that they do not see the necessity to focus on another very crucial and fruitful historic fact: application-focused research, if done correctly, leads not only to progress towards the application at its focus, but also to breakthroughs in fundamental science.

There are many historic precedents of large-scale, but application-focused research. The two most cited examples are the Manhattan Project and the Apollo Program. Both of them pulled in the best of the best, physicists and chemists working hand-in-hand with engineers. And, both programs were transformative. Not only did they substantially affect history, but they also provided major advances in our fundamental understanding of science and engineering. The Manhattan project led to a revolution of our understanding of the smallest building blocks of nature, and on energy release from such small scales. This knowledge has changed astrophysics, our understanding of the interior of stars, and the processes that relate to some of the most violent energy releases in the universe at the heart of our understanding of size and working of our cosmos.

The Apollo program has opened the door to novel methods and approaches in aerospace engineering too numerous to summarize, and has provided the starting point of planetary exploration and space travel thereby transforming our understanding of the solar system, its origin and workings.

Although there is no doubt about the importance of fundamental research, a great University, such as the University of Michigan, should be able to have a second, and highly complementary mode of doing research–large-scale, focused, applied research with outcomes of unquestionable importance. In these efforts, possibly limited to 5-10 years, interdisciplinary teams should be assembled and pushed with high intensity, to try to solve a truly hard problem.

There are three compelling reasons for this approach
1)    A targeted approach focused on a big opportunity allows attraction of big dollars in a way small PI-driven research just does not provide. This can be done with industrial partners, with investors, or with philanthropists or foundations.

2)    The entrepreneurial benefits such targeted and big projects can have. The outcomes from the Center for Wireless Integrated MicroSystems or the Center for Ultra-fast Optics on our campus are a great testimony of the benefit for this approach. Great companies and great inventions have come, and are coming out of this.

3)    The fundamental science that comes out of such a focused approach. When pushing the envelope, we always learn more about science and engineering. There are ample examples from that.

Small Universities have to focus their resources and define their culture extremely well. It is, for example, hard to imagine that a school the size of Caltech could run in both of these modes at the same time. But, I believe, this is the true strength of a school like the University of Michigan. We can support the fertile ground of fundamental research, while building focused, time-limited efforts to push certain new technologies or new science forward in a courageous effort focused on new spaces we want to conquer.

In my opinion, this is one of the biggest opportunities we have at the University of Michigan. We have the tools to become one of the best research locations in the US, and by many accounts we already are.  By courageously pushing forward, we will go beyond that. We can become a leader in how to solve big problems, or take advantage of big opportunities! We will be able to do that if we learn how to fruitfully combine bottoms-up grassroots research, as well as top-down, application focused research.

There are two approaches to research. For this discussion, we will call them “Bell Labs” or “Manhattan Project” approaches, according to some of the best research ever performed in the US, but with two approaches that could not be more different.

The Manhattan project was motivated by a threat of National and International proportion: The world was at the threat to be taken over by a regime that did not stand for freedom and liberty. The Manhattan project, led my renowned physicist Oppenheimer, was arguably one of the most successful leaders of science, pulling together the best of the best, to achieve something almost impossible, and historic.

Much has been written about this time, and many accounts are very memorable. Working at Los Alamos was not easy. The combined pressures of the political world, and the uncertainty caused by the fact that much in the Manhattan project was both breakthrough engineering, and even novel science, led to a highly challenging work environment on both the professional and personal levels. But, it also led to one of the most relevant technological victories in the 20th century.

Contrast this research approach with Bell Labs in the twentieth century. Despite its name, which implies “applied research to help Bell”; Bell Labs was a hot-bed for innovation and discoveries, possibly unmatched with respect to its transformative nature for our lives today. Inventions, such as the Laser, the transistor, programming languages, and many more bubbled up, by using two key principles: 1) Hire the best of the best; 2) Let them work. One of the best descriptions of these principles is by Nobel-prize winning scientist Charles Townes in his book on the Laser. The productivity of Bell Labs was not managed top-down, but very much related to the intelligence of the individuals working there, and the tremendous atmosphere offered by the Labs.

University research in leading universities, such as the University of Michigan, is generally organized according to the Bell Labs model. We try to hire the best of the best, and let them work and evolve into leaders in their fields.

Each Professor has tremendous freedom in her pursuit of academic excellence. In fact, she can come in one morning, and start an entirely new lab focused on something so different; it does not even fit into her specific department.

But, there is one key difference. Basically, all funding has to be brought into her research group through proposals to the government, the non-profit sector, or private industry. Even though that has tremendous advantages, because it forces the professor to explain and compete, raising research funds often turns into a nearly full-time job. Depending on the size of the group, Professors write 5-10 proposals each year. Some of these proposals are for big-bucks—a half a million to five million dollars for some of them, especially the ones with private industry, are sometimes for much less than fifty thousand, or hundred thousand.

This is a major difference between Bell Labs and University research which is important in more ways than one. Most importantly, it is extremely difficult to find research funding with broad objectives, the specialty of Bell. There have been attempts by the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense and most recently, by the Department of Energy, to create such creative environments with a long time-line.

But, research culture in a given group is often determined by the need to raise funds, work tactical as opposed to strategic, and play it safe, rather than risky. I have almost never been successful proposing breakthrough research, but have been very successful winning money in the field I know very, very well and for which I can outline and very well understand the next steps forward.

University researchers deal with this in different ways. Are they staying in their field, often turning into big leaders in a rather narrow field? Are they pushing the envelope?  Are they managing to use their experience in a given field to break into a new field, or to dramatically enhance the impact of their research beyond the realms of their specialty? Are they leaving the University to serve the US, to enter industry?

Research strategy in a given field is very difficult to assess from the outside. It is often challenging to figure out whether there is breakthrough research no matter what the approach, as pointed out by Charles Townes. Townes worked in a field which was considered old-fashioned – optics – before he invented the Maser, leading to tremendously rich applications of lasers in many parts of our lives. But, there is a danger to plowing the same field over and over again as it may become harder and harder to find breakthroughs. The trick is to “turn over the rocks by the wayside”, as Townes suggests, and that’s where new things come from, not by doing the very same thing better and better.

Thus, the University environment offers many opportunities to do research according to the Bell Labs style – self-motivated researchers doing fantastic and new work. But, there is a risk to react to the current funding environment and internal and external pressures and become tactical, rather than strategic; turn narrow rather than broad; and to miss opportunities that initially appear peripheral to the research thrust.

The next post will propose that a small number of Manhattan-style, targeted projects might provide tremendous opportunities for the current research environment, and at the same time provide tremendous entrepreneurial potential for the University and its research enterprise.

It is very instructive to listen to people and especially to the questions they ask when they are trying to understand a new challenge or solve a problem. Different people ask very different questions, leading to vastly different, and sometimes very biased, answers to the very same question. In some cases, the mistake of asking the wrong question, even leads to road-blocks which severely undercut the ability of finding any sensible solution.

In fact, the importance of these questions and the definition of the problem cannot be overstated. Albert Einstein once remarked that “The more formulation of a problem is far more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination and marks real advances in science.” The same is true, of course, in engineering.

In fact, we hear a lot about challenges and problems.  How are we getting rid of our dependence on foreign oil? How are we going to power our houses in twenty years? How are we addressing the health-challenges of the future? How do we stop the cancer epidemic? Or, how can we make traffic safer?

It very much matters that we ask all the important questions before we propose a solution, or start investing in those solutions. Even though it is easily said, this may be one of the most challenging parts of the work of an innovator. Problems are often not what they seem to be upon first investigation. And, we are better off if we ask ourselves a broad series of questions before we start building a solution?
In my observations, engineers and especially University researchers have a tendency to gravitate to the “how” and the “what”. How does this technology really work? What are the problems with autonomous driving today? In other words, many of the questions traditional engineers tend to ask are focused very much on the technology, the gadget and its function. These questions have a tendency to re-“search under the streetlight” – it solves problems with a series of very limited tools and scope. It perfects solutions without a serious attempt to ask whether this pursuit is actually important.

In fact, it is a lot easier to publish a paper focused on a slight improvement of a technology, rather than the first paper on a new approach and new innovation. Researchers are concerned about their ability to publish and they worry about this. But, it’s just not much fun – at least, not to me. Many papers in our literature can be described by an approach summarized by – “nobody asks – we answer”. Libraries would be a lot smaller if we got rid of marginal articles. In fact, I have to admit that such a step would also shorten my own publication list.

Most important breakthroughs are much less concerned with the “how”, but much more concerned with the “why”. Why are we actually using this inefficient process in our cars? Why can’t we apply this new technology to this challenge? “Why”-type of questions tend to undermine the status quo. They are dangerous for the people who want to hold on to the past. But, “why” questions lead to breakthrough’s!

There is another type of question entrepreneurial researchers ask a lot, and which almost never appears in traditional work – “Who”?  Who is the customer for this solution – companies, individuals? Who cares if I am successful? This is one of the most important questions to ask when writing a proposal or when raising funding for an entirely new project. And, I am amazed how few times I actually hear it. In fact, “who”-type questions can be probed by calling some people. “Say – what would you say if I gave you a device that could do X and Y. Would that solve the problem you talk about?”

“Who”-type questions are both humbling and empowering. By asking this question, we acknowledge that we are not the ones calling the shots. We are not in control. There are others whose opinions we absolutely need to care about. We don’t ask enough questions about “who”.

An engineer with an entrepreneurial mindset will be able to ask all these questions – and many more – and understand the answers and implications for technology development. A gadget is not just important because of how it works, but also why it is being used, and whose life it will affect. Asking questions is important – and it is especially important when we are in a hurry: “If we run out of time we need to take time to think!” This is perhaps the most important lesson I ever learned during my time in the military.

The next time you think about a new problem, ask more questions! Innovators don’t just focus on the “what” and the “how”, but equally on the “why” and the “who”!

Note: Professor Scott Fogler in the College of Engineering has developed a class on “Strategies for Creative Problem Solving”, and has even written a book about it. His class-notes to this topic are posted and I have found them to be very inspiring!

Research institutions, such as the University of Michigan, generally underestimate the necessity to communicate their progress and their challenges they are encountering.

I remember discussions with colleagues as a graduate student. “Why do we have to communicate? We are doing important things even if people don’t see that yet.” There is some truth to this. Science does not follow the rules of democracy – the majority is not always right! And, progress takes unexpected turns. Who would have guessed that fundamental research in stimulated emission would lead to entirely new industries based on the Laser – DVD players, and medical devices? Who would have guessed that communication protocols needed for a huge international elementary particle physics experiment will lead to protocols at the heart of the internet today? In many ways, the most exciting part of research is that it cannot be predicted. I love that!

But, I believe that this argument is fundamentally flawed – we need to communicate about research. In fact, communication is absolutely critical. We are currently suffering from the lack of communication. There is insufficient understanding of research, and we struggle to attract talent into science and engineering. In fact, we cannot at the same time complain about the lack of understanding of science and engineering research and refuse to make it our responsibility to communicate both progress and also the challenges we face as researchers. In the absence of our communication, the only people who are talking to the public are quasi-scientists and pseudo-researchers who sound rather intelligent, but, upon scrutiny, fail to exhibit knowledge or insight.

It is easy to talk about progress and victories – how cool: the first measurement of Mercury’s atmosphere; the first DNA analysis on a chip; a novel remote-controlled bumble-bee… An organization like the University of Michigan should have 10 stories like that each week! And, many stories are indeed written. I believe we have even more stories and we should tell them, sometimes informally, perhaps just with a cool picture and a caption, perhaps on YouTube, and perhaps on TV.

But, I think there are two types of stories we do not tell often enough. 1) the story of the person behind the research, and 2) the story that focuses on the challenges, the issues before they have a resolution.

I have given many talks about science all around the US and beyond, and I noticed that people relate to science much more if they relate to the person who performs the science. I have therefore done research learning about the scientists and their personal challenges – about Einstein’s free spirit, Euler’s strong beliefs or Parker’s resilience in the face of resistance to his theories. Many of the scientists and engineers working today have great stories. Some of them grew up in the most challenging environments, and they are wonderful individuals. (Most) researchers are not the weird, badly dressed, pocket-protector-wielding individuals who are removed from anything so-called normal people care about.  They are caring mothers, energetic aerobics instructors, volunteers to charities, avid mountain-climbers, base-jumpers, singers, runners and jazz-musicians. They are cool and smart people!

But, you would never know that if you grow up in Detroit or upstate Michigan. Why become an engineer? Why become a scientist? “They don’t think like me – I am cool!” Well, so are they!

It is also important to talk about the process of science – the challenges, the lessons we learn, and also the opportunity to improve. To my surprise, many of our PhD students don’t understand that most of the science has not been researched yet and most discoveries have not been made yet. That is because we focus so much of our discussions and classes on every detailed result of things that have been found, to the exclusion of things we don’t know and things we don’t understand. Not every researcher is built the same way, but I would rather work in a field with opportunities, rather than being stuck with dotting I’s and crossing T’s. And, I suspect that many of the future leaders feel the same way. By the way, I very much recommend “How the Laser Happened” by Nobel-prize winning physicist Charles Townes, which focuses on new science in an old field of research!

The future of science progress depends on a broad acknowledgment of the importance of research and the availability of the next generation of top-talent to push research to a higher level. Stories of victories, challenges and also stories about the people behind research will help both objectives, at least in the long run.

Communication about science is a lot simpler now than it used to be. We can put up a website, we can start a blog, a Facebook group. But, these tools are only as good as the quality, quantity and originality of the updates that are being provided.  Let’s make this a priority at the University of Michigan – we cannot ignore the importance of communication!

I have recently finished a time of searching and thinking focused on that very question. This will not be the last time I will be going through a time of re-orientation and refocusing. I go through these kinds of questions every few years. Usually, these times of questioning get initiated by a major transition in my life, but more often, they have to do with something I suddenly learn about myself.

I still remember the time where I stood next to the bike-stand near the lake in Thun when I realized that I should be pursuing a career that was very different than the ones pursued by my friends and family. I had done one of these job-search tests and the test was doubly inconclusive. First, the test came back evenly between “Researcher” and “Engineer”. Second, and more importantly, the test came back with a result far removed from anything I knew – even far removed from anybody’s profession that I know. What was I going to do? How would I even start with this?

I spent a few restless weeks, and then, next to that bike-stand, I made my decision: I was going to try to get into Gymnasium, to set me up for a University career. The path in front of me was rocky. In fact, my math education was so bad that I only made it into Gymnasium because of my English and my French. I barely made it in. In fact, my teacher called my parents to tell them that they should not be too hard on me if I have to repeat a year or if I even flunked out.

The crucial part of this decision, and the thing that carried me through sometimes tough times was not my decision of what there is to do, but the recognition that I am a scientist and I had always been. These nights on the roof in the mountains with a star-map were not just a fluke – that’s who I was. The fact that I read all science books in our library was not just an anomaly – that’s who I am.

This is one of approximately ten major decisions in my life and career, and they keep happening. Who am I – really? I know what I am doing now? I know what is easier for me than for others. But, is that important? Does that reveal some part of who I am?

I met many students starting their college education at the University of Michigan and elsewhere. I talked to many of them and sensed their anticipation, sometimes even a little bit of fear. Would they be able to handle the academic programs of one of the top schools in the US? Would they find friends? Would this ever feel like home?

I am sure that most of these students I met will look back at this time in their lives and recognize how important this time of beginning and uncertainty really was. And, I bet, that they will focus less on what exactly they did, but much more about what they learned about themselves. Am I a leader? How do I handle a situation where I cannot be the best in the room? How do I handle uncertainty?

Above all good wishes I have for our students, I wish from the bottom of my heart that they find a way to learn about who they are. They see their own tremendous potential and their capacity of changing things that are not good, and their courage to leap where others have not. There is divine in every one of us, but we have to find it, and that takes time and effort! It’s what gives us courage in tears, the passion that drives us beyond where we are.

As for me, I recently learned about myself that I love to be enabled and build bridge-heads. I learned that I love to build teams of believers in a better outcome, when others still focus on the challenges of the now. I recognized that I am better in changing environments than others, and that I am perfectly happy to share the credit for success. And, that’s why I decided to take an Associate Dean’s job. It’s because I believe in the tremendous and unmet potential we have at the University of Michigan, especially because of all the huge potential of our students, the returning ones, and also the new ones!

Some of the least intuitive aspects of universities are the way they allocate space to their people and their activities.

There are three basic models for space allocation: the dog, the gas, and the use-model.

The simplest model for space allocation is that of a dog who thinks of space as his territory. He will walk in, do a couple quick turns, and then find the pole or the wall he wants to mark. He lifts his hind-leg – done! Now, the only thing he needs to do is to defend that territory. He will do that with vigor and in a loud voice. If needed, he will not move back from using power to enforce what he now claims to be his. There is no over-arching reason or purpose, except that of increasing the territory.

A second model for space allocation can be learned in thermodynamics – the expansion of gas. This is much more silent than the dog methodology, but is equally effective. You can open a bottle in any room – whether it is an aircraft hanger, a small closet and/or a living room. As long as these rooms are more or less air-tight, gas will spread evenly everywhere – guaranteed by the second law of thermodynamics. This is not a violent process, and it does not require any work. Sometimes it is faster, sometimes it is slower. But, the end result is that gas fills all space.

The challenge is that this process is irreversible: even though no work was involved in spreading the gas, there is a lot of work involved in pushing it back into a smaller space. You have to push the gas back and exert quite a lot of pressure to do so. There is only one reason and the principle is plain and simple: gas naturally wants to spread to a state of maximum entropy, to a state where it is evenly spread out.

For all those physicists out there – space needs to follow Fermi-statistics! For everybody else: there is one more important piece in gas expansion. Some particles will never share space with anybody else. These particles are called Fermions, and their entire behavior is dominated by that trade. Their space rules are more like toilets – and less like elevators. One person will fill the space!

A third model is much more deterministic. Space is allocated according to its use. Each space use has value – somebody does a meeting, somebody works there every day, somebody received and advises students, somebody develops strategy from there. If there is an agreed-upon model for value generation, a value per square-foot can be assessed and space can be distributed that way.

There are clearly two challenges of that third model. First, the distribution only makes sense in a data-rich environment. You need to know how space is used and what people do in there. Otherwise, no good process can be built. Second, room uses change sometimes on short time-scale. Some enforcement process has to be in place that decides what time-scale should be used and/or how the displacement process is implemented.

I have been trying to understand how space is allocated in universities, and especially at the University of Michigan. I do not pretend that I understand the process, and, I cannot vouch whether or not that process makes sense. But, for an uninitiated observer, space allocation is a mix of all three principles.

On a strategic time-scale, a use-case is being used. That use-case is based on an expected impact either in teaching, student-support, or research. But, the problem is that once people move in, changes are very, very hard to implement. The reason for that is that, from the time people move in, the first two space allocation principles – territory and spreading – take over. It’s tough to predict how this works and how decisions are made. Somehow, every space is always allocated, no matter what. I have made a habit of walking around places and looking at their use. In fact, according to my estimation, between 20% and 40% of space is under-utilized.

I have taken many walks in hallways. There are labs I yet have to ever see a person in (yes, I do have a key, and I did check; yes, I checked at all times of the week, randomly). I have no clue why they are not losing their space, or, at least are not being merged with others. Well, it can be understood with our gas-laws. Speaking like physicists, they are just Fermions following their natural urge towards the state of maximum entropy. When you try to take space away, however, you notice that there are little dogs in there. You bark and they even bite. It can get dangerous.

Go visit the Center for Entrepreneurship: there are 4-5 people working in a space of two, and – I might argue – by any metric of success, providing a lot of value. The good news is that this was recognized and that we are working on the room next-door for the space-challenged people in the CFE.  Come visit me in my office that I am sharing with a colleague. We may be making history here—an Associate Dean sharing his office.

We have been doing this because I strongly believe that we are a much better place if we more fundamentally think about how we use space, not just at the University of Michigan, but also in our work places and apartments. Is the space adding value to us, to our work and lives? Do we, in fact, need the space we have – if so, why are we paying for it? And, what are the spaces we can share with others – in fact – what are we better off sharing?

We learned at the Center that there were real benefits from sharing space. We are a collaborative bunch and we are in absolute lock-step with each other – that’s one of the reasons we just perform better as a group. We possibly make more mistakes, but we fix them a lot faster than any other group I know. This is of tremendous value to all of us. Needless to say, there are parts that don’t work so well. Sometimes, we need to concentrate and work and that’s really tough with lots and lots of people in the same room.  It’s also tough to advise a student with an audience – we don’t want to do that.

There are tremendous benefits to careful and critical consideration about space, and how we derive value from it. Most of the time, a shared office is not less valuable than a single office. A shared lab may be much more innovative than a single PI lab! And, it really is worth taking on the dogs and the ever-expanding gas – at least sometimes!