Donald Waters
Senior Scholar
Coalition for Networked Information
As CNI Senior Scholar, I am studying the information infrastructure that universities need to best support interdisciplinary research on societal grand challenges like climate change. In the lightning round, I will briefly summarize my work to date, first defining the “wicked” nature of these grand challenges and the kinds of interdisciplinarity required to address them. I will then discuss the range of university investments in grand challenge research, highlighting efforts to respond to growing public interest and to scale up and better integrate faculty research in university centers and institutes. I will close by suggesting ways that libraries and IT organizations may contribute to this scaling and integration process and invite members of the audience to join me for further discussion at the reception or at a breakfast table on Tuesday, or to contact me directly.