Research universities for the 21st century
- Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (United States)
- Univ. of South Carolina, Columbia, SC (United States)
The `public outcomes` from research universities are educated students and research that extends the frontiers of knowledge. Measures of these `public outcomes` are inadequate to permit either research or education consumers to select research universities based on quantitative performance data. Research universities annually spend over $20 billion on research; 60% of these funds are provided by Federal sources. Federal funding for university research has recently grown at an annual rate near 6% during a time period when other performers of Federal research have experienced real funding cuts. Ten universities receive about 25% of the Federal funds spent on university research. Numerous studies of US research universities are reporting storm clouds. Concerns include balancing research and teaching, the narrow focus of engineering education, college costs, continuing education, and public funding of foreign student education. The absence of research on the `public outcomes` from university research results in opinion, politics, and mythology forming the basis of too many decisions. Therefore, the authors recommend studies of other nations` research universities, studies of various economic models of university research, analysis of the peer review process and how well it identifies the most capable research practitioners and at what cost, and studies of research university ownership of intellectual property that can lead to increased `public outcomes` from publicly-funded research performed by research universities. They advocate two practices that could increase the `public outcomes` from university research. These are the development of science roadmaps that link science research to `public outcomes` and `public outcome` metrics. Changes in the university research culture and expanded use of the Internet could also lead to increased `public outcomes`. They recommend the use of tax incentives to encourage companies to develop research partnerships with research universities.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Financial Management and Controller, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC04-94AL85000
- OSTI ID:
- 658242
- Report Number(s):
- SAND-98-1084; ON: DE98005802; BR: YN0100000; TRN: AHC2DT06%%126
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: PBD: May 1998
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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