I want to call your attention to a magazine that I received today from INFORMS. The ORMS ‘Back to School’ special issue . Two articles in particular caught my attention. One was an excellent article on NSF funding and how industry can help with research. It should be mandatory reading for every CEO and Service Science professional.
It explains the various programs available including GOALI and I/U CRC. The I/U CRC (Industry / University Collaborative Research Center is what we need more of in service science. It has been my hope that SRII would be the catalyst for one or more of these. If you want to see a thriving example of one check out ; www.imscenter.net. This I/U CRC is the Center for Intelligent Maintenance Services. It is good industry sponsorship for over 9 years. It is run by Dr. Jay Lee from the University of Cincinnati and with Univ. of Mich. And Missouri S & T .
Since the beginning of SRII, it has been my desire that we facilitate greater industry and academic partnerships and to encourage greater government funding. As an industry professional I am truly ashamed by the lack of participation of business in service research. There are certainly notable exceptions like IBM, Xerox, Accenture and a few others. I am, however, convinced that most businesses are so self absorbed that they do not understand the value of such collaborative research. Certainly there are brilliant examples of the value of industry and academic collaboration in life sciences and manufacturing industries. We also see more activity in the European Union and China. So read the article about how and NSF might want to fund research based on services in the US.
The Second article was on Academic Consulting and the value to both industry and academia with such activities. If we in industry want innovation and a skilled labor pool for the service industry, we need to be deeply and actively involved with academia .
The Second article was on Academic Consulting and the value to both industry and academia with such activities. If we in industry want innovation and a skilled labor pool for the service industry, we need to be deeply and actively involved with academia .
That is my opinion, what is yours?