Dive Brief:
- While research initiatives aimed at solving some of the world’s biggest problem have been getting big money, critics say they’re overly ambitious and mere marketing ploys.
- Inside Higher Ed reports big ideas research is, at times, defined by administrators and bogged down in bureaucracy, limiting what participating faculty members could do on their own.
- Indiana University last month announced it would allocate $300 million over the next five years to the Grand Challenges program, and Princeton, Stanford, University of Michigan, and UCLA are among the schools with similar initiatives.
Dive Insight:
The push for interdisciplinary cooperation to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems is an attractive idea. President Barack Obama’s Office of Science and Technology Policy created the 21st Century Grand Challenges program in 2013 to encourage research universities to consider problems facing the nation and the world at large.
Cluster hiring initiatives also attempt to break down research silos, often with far less pomp than Grand Challenges programs. But in the competition for donors and federal funds, big ideas often get big money.