Issues Facing a Public Institute of Technology

The world is changing rapidly.  Technologies that are new when students enroll as freshmen are often outdated before they graduate.  Constituents, including students, alumni, industrial partners, our states and the nation, have always expected research universities to not only keep pace with these changes, but to lead.  As leaders, designers and innovators, our role is to solve problems and shape our world in an increasingly global environment.  Nationally and internationally, our task is to influence the ways in which problems are indentified and solved, and the ways that students are prepared to evaluate, analyze and resolve those problems.  Public research universities have led in important research for some of society’s greatest challenges in everything from clean water to finding a cure for diseases.  Discoveries of solutions to grand challenges are increasingly occurring at the interfaces between traditional disciplines, and through partnerships with business and industry and between universities. Research universities have a strategic role in developing innovation and getting it from the lab to the marketplace.  In addition, they have a special role in training the next generation of innovators and entrepreneurs. 

In the 2009 -2010 academic year, the Georgia Tech community came together to create a 25-year strategic vision and plan for the Institute. When designing the plan, we explored trends for the future as well as current and anticipated challenges.  We have begun the process of working together to implement short and long-term strategies that are a part of five overarching goals of our new strategic plan.  I will share some of our findings about trends, examples of successful collaborations, initial steps we’ve made in implementing our plan, and thoughts on the role of research universities in the future.