Companies like IBM, Credit Suisse and BMW are now designing and funding curricula changes at major universities, partly in response to the perception that today’s graduates lack certain fundamental skills for a global economy. This means more than just donating free computers or books for a class - it means developing the curriculum from scratch, awarding financial incentives to universities to change the way they teach certain courses, and sometimes even providing the “professor” to teach the course — all in the name of producing graduates that are better prepared to work for their companies in the future.

As the Wall Street Journal explained earlier in the week (sorry, no link available), IBM has even developed a new academic field, “Service Sciences, Management and Engineering,” or SSME, that combines studies in such disparate fields as computer science, engineering, management sciences and business strategies. According to IBM, “these areas are too segregated in higher education, to the detriment of students, companies and, ultimately, the economy.”

The basic question, of course, is whether the extensive role played by IBM in creating and promoting the new curriculum represents a breach of academic integrity. For its part, IBM claims that the new SSME curriculum will help students even if they never eventually work for the company. Yet, at the same time, IBM acknowledges that business considerations are driving the “services science” initiative at a growing number of universities.

For example, Cal-Berkeley has already worked with IBM to create a certificate in “Services Science. Management and Engineering,” while a course taught at Berkeley’s School of Information (”The Information and Services Economy”) includes must-read articles and journal selections written by IBM employees. Other universities jumping on the IBM bandwagon include North Carolina State University, Arizona State and (to a more limited degree) NYU. As one professor sucked into the IBM vortex explains, “It’s a serious idea from a serious company with serious money. You have a big gorilla jumping up and down. How can you not listen to it?”

While the idea of FORTUNE 500 companies invading the hallowed halls of our nation’s best universities is a bit alarming, I have to admit that the whole field of services science is fascinating - check out the presentation slide above from IBM about the emerging field of services science.

Tags: IBM services science innovation

[image: The Academic Context for Services Science]

Many of the military’s newest and most sophisticated technologies are now being developed by researchers at America’s most prestigious universities. As John Edwards of Electronic Design points out as part of a comprehensive look at the current state of military R&D spending, “the government is increasingly relying on university research programs to develop new and innovative ways of fighting wars.” Formerly, the U.S. military used to rely heavily on corporate R&D skunkworks for new ideas (hence the term “military-industrial complex”), but all that is changing as many corporations wind down their massive R&D efforts. Presumably, the same kindly professor who is teaching your son and daughter the finer points of organic chemistry is also secretly developing lethal biological weapons to help America win the War on Terror:

“Fed by cash from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and numerous other government agencies, university researchers toil on projects covering the full spectrum of military needs, including health, security, decision support, communications, transportation, and tactical innovations. The government’s role in sponsoring academic military research began in the days of the Manhattan Project and continues to this day… Along with government money, many labs rely on funding from corporate partners. Businesses are increasingly turning to academic labs—and their skilled researchers—to develop technologies that can be sold to the government and, later on, to consumers and businesses. In fact… a growing number of businesses are finding it more cost effective to farm out specific projects to appropriate university labs than to conduct their own R&D.”

Anyway, the “Military R&D 101″ article includes a number of interesting examples of the type of research being conducted within academia. It all sounds relatively harmless - “artificial muscles that are up to 100 times stronger than their natural counterparts” - but remember, this is the same U.S. government that created a secret CIA prison network without our knowing about it until too late. Paraphrasing President Eisenhower’s famous 1961 warning: “We must guard against the unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the academic-military-industrial complex.”

Tags: military industrial innovation academia

[images: Why We Fight]

As China continues to become a global economic powerhouse, “Made in China” is starting to lose some of its negative connotations. Twenty-year-old Shanghai beauty Du Juan (a former ballerina who only started modeling in 2002) has been turning heads at New York Fashion Week - and that could be good news for luxury goods makers in the Europe and the USA. As Vanessa O’Connell and Cui Rong of the Wall Street Journal explained on Friday (“Her Chinese Looks Make Du Juan a Star Everywhere but China”), the up-and-coming supermodel is being courted by the likes of Oscar de la Renta, Proenza Schouler and Carolina Herrera, all of whom see the young Du Juan as the new face of global beauty. Not only that, she’s appearing in magazine ads for Louis Vuitton, Yves Saint Laurent, Roberto Cavalli and, yes, the Gap — a possible sign that Western consumers could be facing an onslaught of Chinese supermodels sometime soon:

“In Europe and the U.S., China, and all things Chinese, have suddenly become fashionable. “China is a trend,” says David Wolfe, a creative director at the Doneger Group in New York. “We’re on the brink of seeing our fascination with China move mainstream.” The buzz is growing as fashion industry executives see China as not only intriguing and mysterious to Westerners, but also a center of manufacturing and a promising market.”

Within ten years, experts predict that China will account for nearly 30% of all luxury goods sold worldwide. Not only that, but Western luxury goods makers are getting over their hesitation of using Chinese supermodels to promote their products: “It’s completely new ground for Europeans and Americans to feature a Chinese woman so prominently in fashion spreads and ads.”

Tags: China Du Juan luxury design fashion