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.
