Interaction

Oct. 19, 2005

COMMON GROUND: Initiatives and Think Tanks

By Arthur Bienenstock

In three of its four interdisciplinary initiatives (devoted to the environment, human health and international issues), Stanford is addressing fundamental world problems with an intellectual coherence normally associated with think tanks or national laboratories. It is anticipated that significant groups of faculty covering a broad range of disciplines will work together on these initiatives. These coherent, collaborative modes of investigation differ significantly from normal academic endeavors, which usually involve one or a few faculty and several graduate students. It is important to ask, therefore, what Stanford brings to the table compared to think tanks and national laboratories.

Arthur Beinenstock

First and foremost, Stanford has an array of major intellectual capabilities in its Graduate School of Business and the schools of Earth Sciences, Education, Engineering, Humanities and Sciences, Law and Medicine that are unmatched by any think tank or national laboratory in the world. In no other place are these capabilities linked so closely, both geographically and intellectually.

Coit Blacker made this point clearly in the May 4, 2005, issue of Stanford Report, stating, "We know that something is terribly wrong with the system because 90 percent of sub-Saharan Africa is in a developmental tailspin. Here, the key piece is how to build effective institutions. This unites political scientists, sociologists and people from the Business School, the Law School and Engineering. Basically, it's a systems approach—it's trying to understand the conditions under which institutions work. We know good institutions when we see them, but we don't know how to build them."

Most think tanks tend to be strong in the policy, economic and legal aspects of the problems they address. They do not generally have comparable strength in the sciences, technology and education. Yet, science, technology and education must necessarily have a major role in addressing environmental, health and international problems. Likewise, in contrast to most think tanks, the national labs tend to be strong in science, technology and, to a more limited degree, policy, but do not have business, education, social sciences and law scholars. Again, one cannot imagine addressing these major problems without such scholars.

Stanford has them all, and there is an uncommon and well-established tradition of collaboration that transcends departmental and school boundaries. It has, in addition, extremely talented graduate students who can both contribute to and benefit from participation in multidisciplinary team endeavors. Nevertheless, it will be a challenge to mobilize the university's scholars to function in a coherent fashion.

One partial "proof of principle" is the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory. SSRL garnered the cooperation of faculty from Applied Physics, Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, Electrical Engineering, Geological and Environmental Sciences, Materials Science and Engineering, Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology, Neurology, Structural Biology and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, as well as outside users. The leadership constantly presented a "grand scheme" for the laboratory's development, which evolved as new ideas emerged from the leadership and from all users. Implementation of this "grand scheme" involved splitting the work into components that required the attention of a subset of the participants with specific expertise. A similar division of labor among the broad array of disciplines associated with the initiatives is likely to be important for their success.

The SSRL experience also indicates that there are likely to be times when an initiative needs faculty with specific capabilities for whom there is no welcoming department. Such situations will challenge the university's leadership. Indeed, the Executive Cabinet has discussed this potential problem several times and has reaffirmed its commitment to having all faculty reside in departments. We are committed to working with the departments and the initiatives when such circumstances arise. Though we recognize this potentially difficult problem, we anticipate that we will find general solutions as we gain experience with individual problems.

Finally, the SSRL succeeded because it promised and provided faculty and students with scientific capabilities far beyond what was available in any other campus laboratory. As a consequence, faculty and students obtained results that could not be achieved in any other way and pushed the frontiers of their individual sciences.

The close proximity of scientists from different disciplines for long hours and many days has led to many interdisciplinary endeavors at the SSRL, and students have learned to work in teams rather than as individuals. They come to understand their peers' thesis research. Interactions with outside scientists broaden their perspectives and introduce them to research performed in industry and national laboratories. Students participating in the initiatives are likely to gain related benefits as a result of working with faculty and students from other disciplines.

To ensure that these Stanford initiatives are successful, the leadership and participants will have to see that faculty and students can produce results that go far beyond what they could achieve individually or working in the more usual small groups. We believe that the potential outcomes of the initiatives justify the effort and resources that are needed to face this challenge.

Arthur Bienenstock is vice provost and dean of research and graduate policy.