Engines of Innovation: The Entrepreneurial University in the Twenty-First Century

1. The Entrepreneurial Opportunity

1The Entrepreneurial Opportunity Events have conspired to place our great universities in an either enviable or terrifying position, depending on your point of view. They are collectively among the most affluent institutions in our society.¹ They are populated with the best minds in the world and have created a culture that encourages new knowledge and puts it to practical use. But such a wealth of resources comes with an imposing responsibility. Donors, grant makers, and the public at large expect big things from what can reasonably be characterized as one of the crown jewels of our society. Having accumulated such significant resources in the name of advancing society, universities have no choice but to embrace the challenge, but those of us inside the academy know it will be no easy task to meet the high expectations we have created. We believe this moment in history makes unlocking the innovative potential of our research universities a national imperative, and an entrepreneurial mindset is key to achieving this objective. Five historical trends support our conclusion. First, the problems of the twenty-first century are big and complex. Attacking them will require unprecedented resources and nontraditional approaches that complement traditional academic disciplines. Second, information-based tools at the disposal of individuals and small groups undermine the authority of large bureaucratic institutions and empower those with an entrepreneurial mindset. Third, the students who are the heart and soul of all great universi- 10 THE ENTREPRENEURIAL OPPORTUNITY ties approach their education and the world with a new and different mindset—one that values results over process and is comfortable with the accumulation of knowledge through complex forms of social networking. Fourth, traditional sources of expendable funds are decreasing , and funders of all forms have performance-based expectations that are best addressed by an entrepreneurial approach. Finally, it has become increasingly obvious that new ways of problem solving that combine traditional rationality with creative solutions will be required to address the world’s great problems. Entrepreneurial thinking is central to this new approach. Big Problems Require a New Approach to Innovation A research university attacking a small problem is like a brain surgeon performing an appendectomy. With unprecedented resources available to our great American universities and an academic culture built for discovering novel approaches, the public has thrust upon these institutions the challenge of solving what professor John Kao, in his book Innovation Nation, calls “wicked problems”: climate change, environmental degradation, communicable diseases, and extreme poverty, among others; and a meaningful response is expected.² Wicked problems, in Kao’s view, have a good deal in common: they rarely have clear-cut solutions that can be unlocked by a single discipline ; they are complex and ambiguous; and they require fundamentally new approaches to the status quo. Wicked problems are fundamentally different from big challenges the United States has tackled in the recent past. For example, the Manhattan Project was created in 1941 to address the belief that Nazi Germany was on the brink of building an atomic bomb that that would lead to an Allied defeat in World War II. Founded upon a series of breakthroughs in theoretical physics, the effort employed 125,000 people at its peak in three key sites under the leadership of one great scientist, Robert Oppenheimer. This vast project had clearly defined goals: to meet an impossible deadline, produce the first nuclear weapon, and ultimately result in an Allied victory. They were achieved with the detonation of two bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the subsequent surrender of the Japanese forces. All of this was accomplished in three years after the project was authorized by the highest levels of the U.S. government and was successfully kept secret. The mission to “put a man on the moon” has a similar history. In this case the impetus to innovate came in 1957 from the Russians’ THE ENTREPRENEURIAL OPPORTUNITY 11 launching of an unmanned satellite, Sputnik. Coming at the height of the Cold War, Sputnik’s ascent ignited a furor in the United States over the perceived diminution of American scientific and military leadership .With the help of a group of German scientists led byWernhervon Braun, the United States matched the Russian feat of orbit within a year. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was founded soon after with the goal of achieving American preeminence in space travel and eventually placing a man on the moon.Three years later, NASA achieved...