Innovate to Teach, Teaching to Innovate

In 1963, the Robbins Report on universities concluded that Universities should have four main objectives essential to any properly balanced system: to impart instructions on skills; the promotion of the general powers of the mind so as to produce not mere specialists but rather cultivated men and women; to maintain research in balance with teaching, since teaching should not be separated from the advancement of learning and the search for truth; and to transmit a common culture and common standards of citizenship.

Over the past decade, new dynamics have emerged in each of the key domains of higher education, research and innovation (HERI), They are; (i) Innovation ( ii) Research , ( iii) Outcome based education (iv) learning to learn need, (v) growing Information and Communication Technology(ICT) .

But this is also a fact that the demand and need of research which itself is an exhaustive process along with teaching-another demanding task  always draw lot of uproar in the academic world . By practice, there is a very apparent dichotomy between the Teaching University and Reseach University, but now, the changing paradigm and need for tangible results has compelled the Universities to change their focal point and to merge and balance these two fields together .

Universities aren't about teaching v. research, they're about teaching and research

It has been observed that the teachers of University concentrating only on academics were seen to be lagging behind in terms of updation of knowledge and skills, where they are teaching from the textbook printed some four to five years back, based on research older than that. Now with the leading and bleeding technology spearheading not only the economy but also entrepreneurship, research and innovation need to be embeded to the teaching-learning process of the university. This amalgamation will be the magic potion that can cultivate and give impetus to the university aspiring to be the World Class University.

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.

To achieve this, Universities globally are pushing and propelling their faculty members to embrace innovation/research alongwith academics, which sometimes perplexes them. The need of the hour is to differentiate between the two terms and then to draw strategy so as to pursue them diligently.

Research is defined by A. Fuggaetta in his thought provoking paper 3+1 Challenges for the Future of Universities as , “The process through which we shed light on unknown phenomenon, imagine new worlds, invent new technologies, and discover new laws and principles” ( empahsis is mine), whereas Innovation is defined as, “The process through which we apply our knowledge to increase the quality of life , improve the competitiveness of companies and economic institutions, create opportunities for citizens and families to promote and enrich their social experience” ( empahsis is mine).

Thus, research is knowledge-creating and innovation is knowledge-application. Innovation needs the knowledge, breakthroughs and ideas developed by the research. At the same time, innovation produces experiences, feedback, and challenges that feed the research process. Hence, we need to pursue both processes and events in a coherent and balanced way.

 Neither can survive without the other. 

Per se, research basically generates knowledge and acts as a base for the innovation to take place. Most of the Universities, having the motto to serve society and humankind in one way or another, embrace or try to embrace research and innovation so as to fulfill the promised mission. But this requires to promote research while also nurturing innovation which serves society in the widest sense. In the innovation field, the dynamics comprises both “research for innovation” and “research on innovation”. But surprisingely it has been seen time and again that innovation often occurs outside academic environments, as a result of inventive unrestricted thinking and creative experimentation. Case studies like that of Apple iPhone’s deep penetration in the technological and economical market vis-à-vis Xerox PARC having done thorough, but not timely, research hence failure in exploiting the current market trend is a classic example of how sometimes innovation clicks and research fails! The key is to understand various factors that can result into the success of both research and innovation.

In practice, the synergy generated by the convergence of higher education, scientific research and innovation systems, should be interlinked in terms of their objectives and modalities to optimize its accessibility to a wider range of users.

Consequently a new meta-dynamics has also emerged, resulting from the interaction of these factors. Prof. Alfonso Fuggetta in his article The Challenge of Innovation differentiated between the three factors on the basis of certain elements:

Research

Innovation

 Driver

Intellectual Challenges

Market success

Approach

Specialization

Cross-functional

Perspective

Medium-Long

Short-medium

Funding

Typically public Visionary

Typically private venture

Key abilities

Scientific excellence

Ability to execute

Risk

Intrinsic

Systemic

(Source: THE CHALLENGE OF INNOVATION by Alfonso Fuggetta)

The characteristics of research and innovations can be elaborated further as :

Driver: Inner motivation and ultimate goal, In research it may be intellectual challenge, the curiosity, vanity or just career advancement whereas in innovation it can be reinforcement of mission/vision or just help to mankind.

Approach: Research is a very focused, narrow field, whereas, innovation demands multidisciplinary approach to extract maximum possibilities.

Perspective: Research is usually long term with not a very rigid future plan whereas innovation is time sensitive and stringent in nature.

Funding: Industries, now-a-days are more interested in investing in innovative products than research which is longer-term, exploratory and risky in nature.

Key abilities: Research thrives on intellectual ability which derives lessons from past results and explores the future scope whereas innovators have this inbuilt ability to execute and deliver, they are intrapreneurs in nature.

Risk: In research it is high and unplanned, in innovation too it is present .

Throughout the current and past decade, the world has witnessed the advance of knowledge creation, and knowledge society. This era is full of groundbreaking events, amazing innovations, and profitable research and never-like –before teaching tools. The effectiveness of research and innovation needs to be transferred to the university, the seat of learning, to students , harbingers of growth and change. The robustness of the teaching can only be achieved when research and innovation become the integral part of teaching–learning. When wisdom is coupled with Scientific wonders and possibilities.

It is necessary to evolve our teaching models to ensure that persons continuously learn from the environment and from the experiences in which they are involved . We need to center the learning process on the word “education” that comes from latin  word “e-ducere”, which means, “bring out”. This will facilitate students to proactively capture, assess, classify, and organize information, and not just passively store the information that someone is transferring to them.

There is a need to have a radical change in the teaching-learning processes we adopt. We need to move to outcome-based education. Whereby we answer the following questions in close loop :

·        What do you want the students to have or able to do?

·        How can you best help students achieve it?

·        How will you know whether they have achieved it?

·        How do you close the loop?

The onus is on the faculty members and the university now. The world which is seeing a major change in sharing of information and teaching tools, due to the invasive forces of new communication and information technologies, demands from academia rapid updation of skills , abilities knowledge and inclination towards research and innovation.

Tough and demanding but not impossible goal !

(Based on the article by Prof.A. Fuggaetta 3+1 Challenges for the Future of Universities and The Challenge of Innovation )