In the long history of universities, a hierarchical organizational model predominates. Faculty are organized into departments or similar units; unit heads administratively report to a dean of a school; deans report to a provost; the provost reports to the president; the president reports to a board.
There exists, however, an alternative organization that arises among scholars throughout the world. As human knowledge becomes more and more sophisticated, it’s likely that an individual faculty has more ties with scholars working far away from his/her campus, but concentrating on topics very similar to their own. These scholars find each other in professional meetings or through followup communication about individual publications. They form networks. The network collaborates on defining the pressing issues of the field. When possible, they collaborate on research, sharing their expertise, learning from each other, and increasing the depth of knowledge in the field. They link together their own students to become new members. When possible, they nurture each other’s careers. In some sense, they form their own community.
There are attempts in research funding agencies to deliberately form networks. The MacArthur Foundation used a network model to help define needed research in aging and in transitions to adulthood, among others. It labels these as “research institutions without walls.” Sometimes, sustainable networks form around shared facilities. Some of the creation of research centers by the National Science Foundation bring with them a network model of scientists connected to each center. CERN forms a network of facilities but also teams of scientists throughout the world, sharing that infrastructure. Libraries and archives sometimes have formal programs of building networks of scholars.
One of the ongoing duties of university leadership is to build environments for faculty to be maximally productive in their research lives. To what extent can networks of units be a tool to increase this productivity?
Georgetown proudly has many different units addressing issues related to one another. One example is the set of units tackling the impacts of technology on social norms, regulations, and governance, which we’ve labeled the Georgetown Tech and Society Initiative (Center for Privacy and Technology, Institute for Technology Policy and Law, Massive Data Institute, Beeck Center, and hoped for new units, the PolicyLab, and the Center for Digital Ethics) form a natural network of synergistic activities. In what ways could a network model increase the impact of these individual units by offering infrastructure support for collaboration among them?
There are other Georgetown examples that could be added to that above.
The preference of a network model over a hierarchical model is that the individual units retain their identity and autonomy to fulfill their mission unimpeded by the need for adoption of a new mission of a higher-order entity.
So, the university issue is what makes for sustainable networks of autonomous but synergistic units? There seem to be multiple answers to this question. Some are shared infrastructure that may be expensive for each unit alone to support. This would include proposal development support to garner more financial resources for the units. It would include business and financial functions that are necessary to fulfill the obligations to external funders. It would include a communications function for larger networks, to publicize the work of the units and promote the network as enhancing the productivity of the centers. It would include postdoctoral fellows, graduate fellows, undergraduate fellows, who would work across the units and form an intellectual glue among the units. Perhaps, most importantly it would offer a common home, a space in which network nodes could interact and nurture their collaboration.
The goal of networks would be that collaborative activities among the constituent units would increase in volume. Through that collaboration, one would hope that the units would collectively be freed to achieve great impact.
While geographically defined networks can be important, networks are often based on intellectual linkages that bypass traditional academic structures (even collegial structures). Think of this as a series of venn diagrams with limited overlapping interests. The resistance to those networks is significant.