{"id":72883,"date":"2016-10-09T06:30:20","date_gmt":"2016-10-09T04:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/e52.nl\/?p=72883"},"modified":"2016-10-09T06:30:20","modified_gmt":"2016-10-09T04:30:20","slug":"tomorrow-is-good-maarten-steinbuch-eindhoven-as-trendsetter-for-4th-generation-university","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/en\/tomorrow-is-good-maarten-steinbuch-eindhoven-as-trendsetter-for-4th-generation-university\/","title":{"rendered":"Eindhoven as Trendsetter for 4th Generation University"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tomorrow is good.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a>In a weekly column, alternately written by Lucien Engelen, Maarten Steinbuch, Carlo van de Weijer and Daan Kersten, E52 tries to find out what the future will look like. All four contributors are \u2013 in addition to their \u2018normal\u2019 groundbreaking work \u2013 linked to the SingularityU The\u00a0Netherlands, the organization that focuses on spreading knowledge about technologies that can provide solutions to the problems of our time. This Sunday, it\u2019s Maarten Steinbuch\u2018s turn.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

By Maarten Steinbuch<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"SU<\/a><\/p>\n

The technological developments are rapidly progressing and have impact in all aspects of our lives: energy, mobility, health, security, working, living etc. We also might call this the digital society, with internet of everything as driving principle. The speed of change is accelerating<\/a>, and is driven by the exponential growth of computing power dictated by the Law of Moore.<\/p>\n

The question I want to put forward is: how are we going to speed up the research at our universities? How do we stay connected and how can we follow the accelerations of innovations?<\/p>\n

The answer might be to define a next generation of university: a networked university, with open channels to industrial, entrepreneurial, societal engaged individuals. Where innovation is not done in isolation, but in co-operation, with customer participation. An open innovation space.<\/p>\n

Let me first describe the first generations of universities to put the envisioned direction into perspective.<\/p>\n

1st, 2nd and 3rd Generation of University<\/strong><\/p>\n

The First generation of university was focused on education, and the first of this kind is the University of Bologna (1088).<\/p>\n

Then the second generation introduced scientific research as the additional key goal. The example of this type is the Humboldt University Berlin.<\/p>\n

The (current) third generation of university was initiated by Cambridge University. The third added element was that of valorisation. This in fact means the role of initiating market innovations, helping start ups and bridging the gap with industrial applications by bringing the ideas outside the university.<\/p>\n

The table below shows nicely the typical ingredients of the three types of university systems.<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

If we observe how our current system works, the third generation of university is still not implemented everywhere, but we see a strong drive, also in the Netherlands, to work more inter-disciplinary, focus also on entrepreneurs and think about how to create value. Nevertheless, our research processes themselves are still very linear: we do research, starting with a thorough survey of literature, then innovate, then write a paper, submit it, after 3 months or so get reviewer feedback, modify, send again, and after one or two iterations we hope to have it published say one year later.<\/p>\n

4th Generation of University<\/strong>
\nAs stated at the start of this text, the world around us is changing fast, and linear thinking and linear processes are replaced by exponential growth, using the power of platforms (i.e. networks), and circular processes. So I observe a divergence between the pace of university research and its environment, although I know of course that doing research with high quality requires time and dedication. Although I respect these latter values, I would like to propose the 4th Generation of University, with, on top of the regular primary educational tasks, the following key ingredients:<\/p>\n