The Advanced Materials and Processing Program and the Restructuring of Materials Science and Technology in the United States: From Research to Manufacturing (1995)

This final session began with a panel discussion on technology transfer activities in the national laboratories. A number of transfer mechanisms were described: user facilities, licensing, cooperative research centers, personnel exchanges with industry, and CRADAs. All of these activities are expanding at a substantial pace.

Twenty years ago there was a clear compartmentalizing of the functions and areas of operation of government, industry, and universities. The idea of a company carrying out proprietary research at a government research facility would have been unthinkable. An important component of government's interaction with industry was the prevention of collaboration among companies. Now the walls separating industries are coming down. Loss of compartmentalization is occurring on the international scene as well.

In the scientific arena, one of the earliest instances of cooperation was the formation of government-university-industry beam lines at the National Synchrotron Light Source. This came about from necessity. There was not enough money to instrument the beam lines in the conventional, single-owner mode. The model of these “Participating Research Teams ” has been copied at many other user facilities. Other collaborative ventures have followed, such as NSF's Engineering Research Centers and the CRADAs.

The general increase in collaboration can be related to the rise in international trade. Changes started occurring when the fraction of international trade reached about 15% of the GNP. Around that time the national character of industries changed rather dramatically. They no longer were self-contained. The pace of change became dictated by the fastest in the world, as opposed to the fastest in the local market.

The situation in the automobile industry is somewhat similar to that of the electronics industry. The development cost of a new vehicle has become too high for a single company to risk, and so various companies are led to work together. The trend to collaborate in the development of technology has developed more slowly, probably as a result of the longstanding efforts of the government to deter such activities. The passage of the National Cooperative Research and Development Act of 1984 has changed the psychology considerably, and since then there has been increasing interest in working together.

In 1988 Ford, with GM and Chrysler, formed their first consortium to work on precompetitive research. This effort has grown over the years and evolved into USCAR. There now are 10 formal consortia, the largest of which is the U.S. Automotive Battery Consortium, which over its lifetime will spend about a quarter of a billion dollars. As a guiding principle, appropriate areas for collaboration are those involving the social good, as opposed to projects that differentiate vehicles one from another. It is not surprising that many of the areas of collaboration are related to environmental activities. Cooperation occurs not just between industry and industry, but across universities and government as well. Some concerns arise as collaboration increases. Universities may become distorted into being “too relevant,” as opposed to doing what they

are best at and are uniquely fitted for. Government, as it becomes more involved with industry, may decide that it wants to design specific products rather than participate jointly in work on generic processes and properties. There is concern about the transactional friction of interacting with the government. At least the initial phases of the CRADA process have been extremely painful. It is hoped that everyone will learn from this experience and concentrate more on the end purpose as opposed to the hurdles to be crossed in the process.

Budgetary problems, associated with the state of the economy and the downsizing of the defense industry, are important contributors to the changing environment for universities. Economic difficulties have led to increased public scrutiny of academia. Why are professors paid so much for “teaching” only 3 hours a week? That people should ask such questions shows that the universities have not done a good job in explaining to the funders and taxpayers the role of a research university and the importance of graduate education for the well-being of the country.

Recent surveys of engineering education deplore the overemphasis in curricula on analysis and reduction as opposed to synthesis and integration. The role of engineering education is to develop in students the intellectual skills and knowledge that will equip them to contribute to society with productive and satisfying careers as innovators, decision makers, and leaders in the global economy of the 21st century. What the survey results really mean is that the universities are encouraging overspecialization in many ways, and aren't really teaching their students the broad spectrum of skills that is so necessary for them to survive in the marketplace.

The two key features that the universities should provide are students and a knowledge base. These are the universities' most important products. We (universities) are good at knowledge creation but need to get more adept at knowledge integration and knowledge transfer. Knowledge integration often requires interdisciplinary education and teamwork.

As regards research, the recent report of the National Science Board Special Commission on the Future of NSF said that there are two parts to the universities' mission. The first is curiosity-driven research, and the second is research to support strategic areas in response to scientific and engineering opportunities to meet national goals. It is in the national interest to pursue both goals with vigor and in a balanced and seamless way.

I now give a couple of examples of how we are adapting to changing needs at Santa Barbara. The Materials Department was founded in 1985 or 1986. All Materials faculty have joint appointments in other departments. Many of the PhD students have faculty advisors from different departments. The new Materials Research Laboratory (MRL) also is highly interdisciplinary. The faculty involved in the MRL are almost equally divided between the College of Engineering and the College of Letters and Science. In addition, a significant number have previously worked in industry. The Science and Technology Center for Quantized Electronic Structures (QUEST) and the MRL have joined to set up an education outreach program that gives high school students and undergraduates a chance to experience research firsthand.

A strategic area that is being pursued at the University of California at Santa Barbara is the environment. The University of California (UC) system has chosen Santa Barbara as the home of an environmental school. Following the model of the materials department, a large number of the faculty will have joint appointments in the engineering school or in letters and science. The curriculum will provide the fundamentals of environmental chemistry, computing, modeling, and whatever else is needed. Interdisciplinary degrees are a difficult

issue. Employers want to hire an electrical engineer or a physicist or a chemist. A degree out of the mainstream is not recognized—this is a problem that is going to have to be resolved by academia in consultation with industry and government employers.

It has been stated that the stability of the university system becomes an excuse to resist change. But we are entrepreneurs and know that if the world changes, survival demands that we change, too. I have little doubt that the U.S. research university will be reinvented to meet the challenges facing us in the years ahead.

The last 50 years have been anomalous in our experience as Americans. In the post-war years the United States was the chief element in the world economy. We now no longer have that monopoly, and indeed, in many cases, we're overshadowed by other countries in their productivity, and yet we still seem to believe that we can function in the same way and at the same rate as we have for the past 50 years.

What will the next 50 years be like for engineering education? The nature of funding is changing and will continue to change. The state and federal patrons are broke. We are producing twice as many PhDs in engineering and physical sciences as the system can bear. So the capacity of the country to produce very well educated individuals is probably twice what the market can bear, and that fact has dire consequences for the country. But this situation also says something about the way those individuals are being trained and the nature of the education they are receiving. Engineering education must become more interdisciplinary and must focus more on manufacturing. Manufacturing has been a stepchild in the engineering field. If U.S. industry is to maintain its current status and regain some of what has been lost, this is one of the fundamental elements that is needed in terms of the graduates of its engineering schools. Engineering should not be considered as separate from the physical and life sciences. Just as there is a continuum between applied and basic research, so also is there a continuum from physics to chemistry, biology, and the engineering fields. Applied work or manufacturing has its own dynamism, its own vitality and intellectual integrity, and it feeds back into the research enterprise.

A problem is the reward structure in place at universities. It is almost impenetrable when it comes to recognizing interdisciplinary research. The system demeans and makes nearly impossible adequate rewards for the individuals who, in fact, do manufacturing technology R&D. A recent report on engineering within the UC system identified as problematic the strong adherence of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) to quantitative measures of course units in various categories as a standard for accreditation decisions. The report stated that this adherence has inhibited innovations in engineering curricula and improvements in quality. The basing of promotions and tenure on purity of research has also been debilitating to researchers working in applied fields.

Students have been voting with their feet when they see that graduates are not matched to opportunities in the commercial sector. The attrition rate in universities for physical science and engineering students is fully 60%. Only 40% of students who enter as freshmen in engineering or physical science end up graduating in those disciplines. This is a tragic loss of talent and may not be due just to the lack of ability of those individuals. It may be due to the nature of the educational program that has been put together. The situation is worse than the statistics indicate, because the statistics focus on the individuals who have entered those professions. The white male now represents 30% of our population. That means that 70% of the population is not necessarily represented in the engineering curriculum. The statistics are quite staggering. Women now earn half of all bachelor's and master's degrees awarded in the United States and more than a third of the doctorates. In engineering, their share of the

bachelor's degrees is 15%; of master's, 13%; and of PhDs, 7%. These figures show that there is a systematic exclusion of half of our population. The number of minorities who go into the engineering professions is so small as to be embarrassing and is limiting the capacity of our society in terms of its own goals. The very nature of the engineering curriculum is acting as a deterrent to enrollment and successful completion by women and minorities in the engineering programs. The nature of the structure of our academic programs makes them impervious to change in the directions that our society needs. Unless the engineering and science schools change their focus and work more in directions that favor applied research and, in particular, manufacturing, they will not do their service to our society in terms of job creation and in terms of productivity.

Educators in engineering and the physical and life sciences need to recognize not only the importance of applied research and manufacturing, but also the excitement that experiences in these areas provide to students and faculty.