Scientific excellence and talent need the right conditions to develop into lasting technological and societal capabilities. Our institutions connect with almost every part of society, yet too often we act separately, without a shared understanding of what we can achieve together. We need to support collaboration across disciplines and sectors while protecting the freedom to explore new knowledge.
The challenge begins with recognising that society’s driving forces do not naturally align. Governments face immediate pressures. Industry responds to markets. Researchers pursue questions whose significance may only become clear over time. Differences also exist within organisations, between disciplines and across cultures. Universities can help people understand these differences and find opportunities where their interests meet.
A systemic approach helps us explore opportunities across disciplines and organisational boundaries. University leaders must support that exploration and bring verified scientific knowledge into decisions and action.
Curiosity must remain central to basic science, and verified knowledge should be open and globally accessible. Alongside these commitments, universities need to give greater attention to the conditions that allow people to work across disciplines and sectors. That includes incentives for interdisciplinary research, support for open science and training in how to build trust.
I see three complementary roles for universities. The traditional role, supported through established research funding and evaluation, remains essential. A catalytic role creates additional opportunities for researchers to pursue free, curiosity-driven work across disciplinary boundaries. A convening role brings partners together in a neutral setting around areas of strength, enabling them to explore challenges and opportunities with scientific knowledge as a foundation.
University governance should connect these roles through a coherent support strategy. Researchers need time and appropriate incentives to develop ideas before those ideas are ready for wider collaboration. External partnerships should build on that work while recognising the different purposes and motivations of universities and their partners.
At the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST), interdisciplinary research units led by principal investigators allow faculty and students to cross traditional disciplinary boundaries. Units reflect researchers’ interests, with rigorous international evaluation of outcomes every five years. This provides freedom to explore alongside a clear responsibility for quality.
Trust has its own logic and requires deliberate attention. A university and a company can both conduct excellent research, but their cultures and driving forces differ. Effective collaboration depends on understanding and valuing those differences.
I have found that collaboration works best when it connects people at several levels. Researchers need direct relationships around agreed projects, supported by management and a shared commitment among senior leaders. Regular dialogue at the highest executive level, for example every six months, can help partners review progress, address differences and identify new opportunities. That commitment also signals throughout each organisation that the partnership matters.
Precompetitive collaborative research can provide a continuing foundation for the partnership. As trust develops, the partnership may expand into talent and leadership development, joint laboratories, shared facilities or testbeds. Commercially competitive activities can sit alongside this work under separate agreements.
Partners need to discuss opposing views respectfully and draw on each other’s strengths. Professional training in trust-building should support this process.
Curiosity-driven research can open unexpected routes to collaboration. At OIST, researchers from two units are exploring how carefully controlled thermal interventions might influence tropical cyclones. The work seeks a deeper scientific understanding of these processes and explores the possibility of intervention.
The questions have attracted connections with other research areas and potential partners, including work on ocean and atmospheric monitoring, seaweed farming and carbon dioxide removal. Such developments show how an initial scientific question can bring new disciplines and societal interests into contact. University leaders can support these emerging connections with incentives suited to the researchers and the opportunities taking shape.
Energy research in Okinawa offers another example. A multidisciplinary open research centre and a public–private–university testbed connect basic research with the practical challenges of resilient energy systems for subtropical islands. The testbed provides a setting for partners to test and refine technologies, informed by continuing research and interaction with start-ups. The testbed can start small and expand over time.
These roles also demand leadership capabilities throughout the university. Students, researchers, engineers, entrepreneurs and professional staff need opportunities to understand different motivations, build effective teams and work across sectors.
Leadership development should begin with awareness of the forces shaping society and of people’s own preferences. It should then develop the ability to build trust, draw on diverse expertise and influence how people approach a problem. Leaders must also examine the systems in which people work and create conditions for change.
Our graduates carry these capabilities into society. By preparing students to work across disciplines, build trust and lead diverse teams, universities can help them challenge established approaches in industry and contribute to lasting change.
Universities should articulate their shared mission globally while respecting the distinctive strengths and local identity of each institution. Open meeting places across universities can connect expertise, facilities and perspectives that would otherwise remain separate.
Trusted dialogue, leadership development and curiosity-driven research should be priorities. Open science and partnerships can extend the reach of knowledge and bring long-term thinking into collective action.
University leaders must give researchers the freedom to explore, create incentives for collaboration and build trust across institutional boundaries. Through these commitments, universities can bring scientific knowledge into collective action and help society shape a more resilient future.
This article is adapted from a speech delivered by Karin Markides on 23 October 2026 during the CESAER Annual Meetings 2026, held at Instituto Superior Tecnico in Lisbon, Portugal, where she addressed leaders and representatives from over 50 of Europe's leading universities of science and technology.
Karin Markides is President Emerita and Executive Advisor at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan, following her presidency from 2023 to 2026. She previously served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Chalmers University of Technology from 2006 to 2015, President of the American University of Armenia from 2019 to 2022, and President of CESAER from 2009 to 2011. An analytical chemist by training, she also served as Deputy Director General of Sweden’s innovation agency Vinnova. Her experience spans university leadership, research, innovation policy and international cooperation.
Download Karin Markides’ CAM 2026 presentation (PDF)
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