Educational Needs for Science and Technology in the 21st Century University

The Academy is collaborating with Germany's Berlin-Brandenburg Academy on an interdisciplinary study of the changing research and education needs of universities in the 21st century. Chaired by Harvard physicist Henry Ehrenreich, the project is the first in a proposed series of comparative studies of new challenges facing higher education in the United States and Germany. Subsequent projects will focus on the social sciences and the humanities.

The study will examine the rise of interdisciplinarity in the sciences, which involves a bridging of the core science disciplines. Physical sciences such as chemistry and physics will increasingly have to incorporate biology, but as new material is added to core courses, what should be subtracted?

Partially in response to these changes, many universities have established new institutes that form the heart of interdisciplinary scientific studies. This project will look at the role of these institutes—their function inside the university and their connections with industry and other outside entities—as well as at the role of university departments.

The binational study will also look at the increasing importance of international collaboration, enabled by modern communications and information technology. Varying national approaches to academic administration will become more significant as students and faculty spend more time abroad and working with colleagues from other nations. These issues, together with changes in the relationship between universities and the private sector, pose sweeping challenges for academic administrators.

The Academy's mix of scientists, humanists, and social scientists will ensure that this series of studies addresses the broader contextual and historical setting within which the changes in higher education in all areas of learning are taking place.