Collaboration key to U.S. innovation

By Laurel Thomas Gnagey

The United States needs more investment in innovation and collaboration if it is to retain its position as a great world leader, President Mary Sue Coleman told members of the national press corps last week in Washington, D.C.

In her annual visit to Capitol Hill to meet with lawmakers, Coleman also addressed members of the National Press Club in a speech entitled, "Not Your Father's Space Race," during which she recalled the competition 45 years ago to beat the Russians into space. The United States, obsessed with being the first to land on the moon, became "enthralled with the power and promise of science," she said.

"Win we did. And now the generation that couldn't get enough engineering and medicine and math is at the helm of leadership and saying, 'We need another Sputnik!' But today's crisis cannot be compared to Sputnik, because this is not your father's space race," she said.

"We have no enemy, except perhaps ourselves. Our national priorities are not necessarily shared priorities, as any observer of Congress—or American culture, for that matter—knows. There's not a whole lot that we rally behind together as a society, except perhaps who should be the next 'American Idol.'

"The best minds in our country—business leaders like Norm Augustine of Lockheed Martin and Rick Wagoner of GM, university presidents like Shirley Tilghman of Princeton and John Hennessy of Stanford—are profoundly concerned that we are at risk as a nation if we do not commit to more innovation, more math and science, and more basic research."

Coleman called for more research funding and greater investment in student financial aid at a time when the federal government is cutting back in both areas. She also said improving high school curricula is essential to preparing young people who will be the next great innovators. Coleman told members of the press that collaboration is critical to future discoveries.

"Putting a man on the moon was, frankly, easier than finding a cure for AIDS or a solution to global warming," Coleman said. "Today's challenges are incredibly complex and require the creativity and expertise of many great minds. That's how we have to approach science today because the problems we need to solve are too complicated to be explained by a lone scientist in a solitary lab."

Coleman pointed to the recent development of a new cochlear device that has been perfected to offer better hearing for the profoundly deaf using an implant that is easier for surgeons to insert. The technology, she said, was a joint research venture between U-M, Michigan State, Michigan Technological University and the National Science Foundation.

"We are bringing together the best of institutions to create the brightest of technologies."

The president reiterated that Michigan's higher education institutions are key to the state's economic rebound, saying innovation must be at the heart of the recovery. She pointed to the University's investment in areas such as the life sciences as the future of the state's reinvented economy.

"But our efforts are being choked because of incredibly tight state restrictions on embryonic stem cell research," she said. "Our investments—in science, in technology, in a re-tooled Michigan economy—are at risk if scientists in our state cannot pursue the most promising avenues of research. We are going to lose our best scientists to other states where the research climate is more favorable, and there is no good in that for Michigan—the university or the state.

"That's what I mean about this not being the same kind of brain race as Sputnik. Even with new discoveries before us—new discoveries that mean new technologies and new jobs—we sometimes face a resistance and skepticism that the Mercury Seven never encountered."

Recent collaborations, including the program established with universities in China and the Google Library Digitization Project, are further evidence of the potential of partnerships, Coleman said.

"By reaching out and finding strong partners, we as a university can create some amazing work that will genuinely transform the world."