The link is to a NYTimes.com piece by G. Pascal Zachary….
Successful research universities are increasingly allowing corporate privileged access to their latest findings in science and technology. I know there are positives and negatives to this…those arguments have been back and forth for years. What’s interesting are the perspectives from the players and what this all means, not that it’s happening.
Money quote:
The appeal of these arrangements is that “we get broad engagement with universities,” says Andrew Chien, Intel’s director of research. “Their researchers work on frontiers, in unexplored territory. We want explorers.”
Intel hopes to learn more about scientific and technical developments that might influence its business, even decades from now. The company says it benefits from having its own employees rub shoulders with professors, while gaining the chance to observe younger talent in Ph.D. programs.
“You can view this as a pure pipeline,” says Chien, himself a former professor.
This is a perspective that I think has particular resonance for the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study and its various stakeholders and friends–particularly those in the private sector. One of the strategic directions that we’ll be heading in the next year will be towards building relationships like the ones Intel has with Berkeley, University of Washington and CMU.
Discoverers and Discoveries 