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Materials and Man's Needs, research uni-

*Presented December 1, 1987 at the 1987 MRS Fall Meeting, in Boston, Massachusetts, during Symposium Y on Education in Materials Science and Engineering: The Changing Role of University, Industry and Government Interactions.

versities have established multidisciplinary d e p a r t m e n t s of materials science and engineering and universitylevel, interdisciplinary MSE research centers to broaden the participation in materials research by all of the co-lateral disciplines of science and engineering. They have also provided a closer link

MRS BULLETIN/MAY 1988

matter of national policy because of the benefits such investments can bring to both quality of life and national prestige. Consequently, the fraction of the world's technology base contributed by the United States will continue to decline, and the risk of becoming "blind-sided" by technological breakthroughs elsewhere in the world will continue to increase.

Our major national asset to sustained industrial competitiveness and global technological leadership is the research university. I believe our major national asset to sustained industrial competitiveness and global technological leadership is the research university. Research universities in the United States have become the envy of the world for the quality of their higher level education and research. With the initiation of the ARPA interdisciplinary laboratories in the early 1960s and the issuance of the COSMAT report in 1973 entitled

between theory and experiment and greater access to expensive instrumentation. These changes have greatly increased the quality of graduate MSE talent available to all sectors of our society and have also increased the pace of new materials discoveries. Yet, in spite of these advances, or perhaps because of them, universities are finding it necessary to evaluate their curricula and research directions more critically now than ever before to address a growing number of interrelated questions such as: • How much emphasis should be given in a four-year undergraduate curriculum to the total education of the individual at the expense of education in the disciplinary core? • How much specialization should be incorporated in an undergraduate curriculum in MSE, and how should this be balanced against a unified MSE core? • What should be the balance between entrepreneurial R&D activities in close partnership with industry versus conserving the traditional university missions of disseminating knowledge and generating new knowledge? Can these missions be made compatible? • How much human and financial resource should be invested in fostering an environment of interdisciplinary cooperation across disciplinary d e p a r t m e n t s and major university units versus building greater strength in the disciplines? • What types of continuing education courses will best serve the needs of 21

Exploiting New Materials Technologies for Competitive Advantage

technical talent in industry and government to upgrade their skills and competencies in a