Present public universities as leaders of innovation: An oxymoron?
Wednesday, 16 March 2016
An oxymoron is a situation where seemingly contradictory elements are brought together. In the present case the contradictory elements are innovation and public universities. I have been hearing so much about our public universities as leaders of innovation that I feel we need to keep harping about the quality of our universities and why they need to innovate before they help others.
The impetus for this column is an initiative by GIZ to build university-industry partnerships under the broader theme of developing the SME sector in Sri Lanka. Two seminars have been held to date. I attended both. The content was educational about innovation in SMEs, but I confess I was sceptical about the role of public universities.
The second seminar was more useful because there was participation by CINEC, a private higher education institution and Brandix, a major export-oriented company. While university representatives talked about government interventions to build functioning eco-systems and so on, the private sector came up with more practical approaches.
The Brandix representative noted how a program co-organised with MIT, USA, could not be carried out as planned because our universities did not have a synchronised academic calendar which would give extended period of off-days or vacation time for our students at a designated time of the year.
Captain Ajit Pieris of CINEC pointed out that the priority of our universities is to turn out innovative graduate and leave it to the graduates to bring innovation to the SME sector. Comments from the audience was to the effect that our universities should be innovators themselves.
Yes, public universities need to innovate first
Universities are conservative institutions. European and US universities have survived over five centuries by adapting while preserving their structures more or less. Roger L. Geiger identifies 10 stages of adaptation demonstrated by universities over the five centuries. We will look at the more recent history where the trendsetter has been the USA.
The 1900 to 1945 period was the ‘Growth Period’ fuelled by increasing admission of war veterans to the universities. The 1945 to 1970 is called the ‘Academic Revolution’ with universities being major players in the technological pursuits of the Cold War.
Wednesday, 16 March 2016
An oxymoron is a situation where seemingly contradictory elements are brought together. In the present case the contradictory elements are innovation and public universities. I have been hearing so much about our public universities as leaders of innovation that I feel we need to keep harping about the quality of our universities and why they need to innovate before they help others. The impetus for this column is an initiative by GIZ to build university-industry partnerships under the broader theme of developing the SME sector in Sri Lanka. Two seminars have been held to date. I attended both. The content was educational about innovation in SMEs, but I confess I was sceptical about the role of public universities.
The second seminar was more useful because there was participation by CINEC, a private higher education institution and Brandix, a major export-oriented company. While university representatives talked about government interventions to build functioning eco-systems and so on, the private sector came up with more practical approaches.
The Brandix representative noted how a program co-organised with MIT, USA, could not be carried out as planned because our universities did not have a synchronised academic calendar which would give extended period of off-days or vacation time for our students at a designated time of the year.
Captain Ajit Pieris of CINEC pointed out that the priority of our universities is to turn out innovative graduate and leave it to the graduates to bring innovation to the SME sector. Comments from the audience was to the effect that our universities should be innovators themselves.
Yes, public universities need to innovate first
Universities are conservative institutions. European and US universities have survived over five centuries by adapting while preserving their structures more or less. Roger L. Geiger identifies 10 stages of adaptation demonstrated by universities over the five centuries. We will look at the more recent history where the trendsetter has been the USA.
The 1900 to 1945 period was the ‘Growth Period’ fuelled by increasing admission of war veterans to the universities. The 1945 to 1970 is called the ‘Academic Revolution’ with universities being major players in the technological pursuits of the Cold War.
