Universities are at a crossroad, and they have the tools to catalyze impact

The world’s challenges are pressing and diverse. Human ingenuity in modifying the earth’s physical, chemical, and biological systems has accelerated since the Industrial revolution. This ‘controlled shaping’ of our natural world has far outpaced the process of natural evolution, delivering the anthropocene epoch we live in.  

We must now accept responsibility and steer technological evolution so that humanity does not sink further into the biological forces of natural selection and climate crisis from which we cannot escape. The challenges and choices we face require deeper understanding of the interconnected systems shaping our rapidly changing world.  

Shaping a new role for universities 

Two decades ago, as a professor and university Dean, these insights led me to take on new responsibilities of university governance, supporting future-facing directions and promoting global action built on interdisciplinary work at the forefront of fundamental scientific research.  

Universities now face multiple challenges, bringing them to a crossroads. They hold many of the attributes and capabilities our world needs. By coaching society towards a deeper awareness, adaptability and positive innovation, universities can help nations reaffirm a core mission which cultivates critical thinking. These societies will gain most for their people.  

In my academic career, I have been fortunate to experience first-hand the importance and impact of ‘system level’ thinking. If we are to prepare for threats and opportunities, university leaders must take on a system’s view and engage with multiple stakeholders. They must embrace the dual responsibility of integrating with local development and connecting this with the global competencies needed to address transnational challenges.  

The double-edged sword of Artificial Intelligence 

The indiscriminate adoption of AI is accelerating this transition and complicating it. The more highly customizable and personalized these AI tools and applications are, and the more individuals tailor information input to their own preferences, the more they narrow their perspectives. That happens without considering the risks and implications of wider adoption.  

This not only poses a threat to critical thinking but also minimizes opportunities and exposure to diverse views in society. AI tools must be supervised and facilitated by humans to accommodate diverse and even divergent viewpoints, which are essential when addressing societal challenges.  

Properly used, AI supports faster acquisition of skills and knowledge required within society, including cross-disciplinary problem-solving and an ability to understand and accept a mindset shift. Students who are digital natives therefore are likely to expect their university to be prepared to guide them for how to enable such shifts in their future roles. 

Building public-private partnerships 

Another area requiring system-level thinking is academia-industry partnerships. The neutral and trusted position of universities makes them ideal partners in public-private-university collaborations.   

While leading Chalmers University of Technology, located in the heart of west-Sweden’s branded fame for safety on roads, I took a decisive role in university breaking through the tradition of conducting R&D behind closed doors in global transport development.  

Through trust building in partnership and coaching we established AstaZero, the world’s first open full-scale independent test and R&D environment for future road safety.  

Initiating and enabling the infrastructure was difficult, but we attracted all kinds of traffic and traffic situations through electrification, autonomous driving, 5G support, and advanced safety. The ownership of this testbed was later transferred to a national research institute, but it demonstrated how universities, with their peer-reviewed expertise and public trust, are uniquely positioned to lead such efforts. This model should be supported by a designed ecosystem, like living labs, digital twins, or testbeds, mirroring a real-world future where new solution can be tested, compared, and provide novel standards.  

The importance of academic comfort zones 

Understanding the system is critical for building the trust needed to support successful collaboration across disciplines, geographies, and stakeholders.  

Shared insight helps all partners work towards an impactful and significant outcome. That collaborative role works best when a university provides researchers with a ‘smart comfort zone’, where they can be creative, with the freedom and time to reach beyond the horizon. Intellectual creativity is enhanced by this freedom and comfort, which stimulate risk taking and ability to enhance responsibility and make impactful leaps forward.  

Universities need to nurture and protect such comfort zones. The Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) builds this model using research units, where each faculty member has full academic freedom and responsibility over a basic research environment. They are supported with incentives to pursue interdisciplinary curiosity-driven knowledge with extraordinary outcomes.  

Keeping these faculty-led research units as the protected organizational comfort zone has enabled the researchers to explore, validate, and collaborate on innovative ideas and initiatives. They benefit from great freedom and funding security for 5 years, until the outcome is evaluated rigorously by an external peer review panel.  

One example of risky blue-sky research at OIST is the outstanding achievements of directly imaging the flow of electrons in motion or excitons in their nanometer length scale and femtosecond timescale in photovoltaic materials and two-dimensional semiconductor materials. That opens the possibility of deepening our understanding of fundamental electron behavior and improving future technology.  

Networking is another effective tactic, whether between disciplines, within areas of societal challenge, or across innovation ecosystems, or in public-private-university partnerships. It can support external affiliations and inter-institutional collaboration to share resources and overcome financial or demographic weaknesses.  

These networks can build bridges and break barriers, resulting in local, national, and global gain. At OIST, this is exemplified by the collaborative efforts to capture surface-level data over the ocean simultaneously and in real time. This challenging and important work helps to fully understand the basic mechanisms that drive devastating phenomena like typhoons and linear precipitation zones. This scientific challenge is tackled by a network-collaboration between OIST researchers, NTT basic research and R&D, and Japan Meterological Research Institute (JMRI). Over time, the collaboration aims to refine forecasting models and develop case-specific prediction technologies, with potential applications in real-time disaster prevention and resilience planning with Japan Coast Guard. 

Cultivating future leaders 

Effective networking and collaboration between public and private requires new routines. One example is with the processes required to overcome different stakeholder cultures, using trust building activities.  

These collaborations need regular strategic dialogue with executive level review and development of the project portfolio. As trust grows, diverse projects in research, education, innovation, and outreach are added to the portfolio. By integrating projects with several stakeholders, this collaboration model can scale for impact and enable new opportunities, such as leadership training, transformative new industrial standards, IP-controlled projects, and pre-competitive developments and awareness.  

Finally, a crucial role of universities in the 21st century university is helping leaders understand how forefront knowledge can connect local cultural heritage, natural processes, and global systemic solutions. Universities are expected to intensify leadership training. That means building skills based on understanding personal preferences and establishing the kind of trust that enables mindset shifts and transformative collaboration. A PhD student must learn to use interdisciplinarity to foster creative thinking and manage collaborative problem solving in a multidisciplinary team.  

Human and natural forces are redefining the role of universities. Positioned at the intersection of public, private, local, and global interests, universities must combine creativity and courage with a commitment to knowledge-driven progress. Universities will play an increasingly important role in embracing an entrepreneurial ecosystem starting far below the Technology Readiness Level scale, catalyzing innovation which flows from interdisciplinary basic knowledge, and which delivers lasting values. In doing so, universities can become the architects of a new era — one in which knowledge serves both people and planet. Those that link local heritage with global solutions will help humanity build a regenerative, resilient future.