Dean's message
The forging of collaboration
November 2023
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In engineering and computer science academic circles, big talk about technical collaboration is everywhere. And yet, there are nuances about collaborations that are not often discussed. First among them is that deep, game-changing collaborations are extremely challenging to forge. The effort, however, is well worth it. The bigger the lift, the greater the potential outcome. That’s why I am so driven when it comes to forging new collaborations that have the potential to accelerate engineering and computer science for the public good.
It will be no surprise to you, I’m sure, that I loved to see the collaborative nature of our Â鶹´«Ã½ Jacobs School of Engineering innovation ecosystem highlighted in a . The story is about an educational project that prepares Japanese startups to succeed in the US market – a collaboration that is poised to add exciting new ideas and jobs to our region. In fact, the program itself is run by the Â鶹´«Ã½ Institute for the Global Entrepreneur, which is a collaboration that was worked out between our Jacobs School of Engineering and the Rady School of Management.
At my recent Dean’s Council of Advisors meeting, 50+ of us talked about the challenges in forging collaborations at the enterprise scale. Smaller groups dove down into the details of the four Jacobs School Grand Initiatives on the agenda: collaborative efforts funded by the ; a next-generation biofoundry; moving from fusion science to fusion engineering; and efforts to create a platform to .
Maximum success in these enterprise-scale endeavors is only possible if we can forge strong collaborations in times and places in which the forging is NOT easy. This requires things like building consensus on the boundaries that separate competitive and pre-competitive research arenas, even as the technical details are changing rapidly.
For world-class engineering schools, positive impact requires the hard work of building the complex, multi-party collaborations required to solve the toughest challenges we face as a society. If this building were easy, it would have been done already. The challenges in building are what make being the Dean of the Jacobs School of Engineering such a satisfying and exciting job. As you will see, in all the stories below, hard-fought collaborations play important roles in achieving positive impact. As always, I can be reached at DeanPisano@ucsd.edu. ; access the PDF version here.
Sincerely,
Al
Albert ("Al") P. Pisano, Dean
Â鶹´«Ã½ Jacobs School of Engineering