V. Breaking Down Barriers: An Institutional Approach

Positioning higher education to play an active part in the future of public interest technology involves work beyond what can be done by individual faculty or departments. Key challenges in this area include:

• Leadership buy-in is essential, but presidents and provosts juggle competing priorities;
• Legacy academic structures built around separate departments and schools continue to stand as obstacles to the silo-breaking required for PIT to be successful; and
• Given the early stage of PIT, risk tolerance is critical in universities.

Interviewees emphasized that institutional buy-in is behind three key levers for continued progress: creating a community for institutional collaboration, activating university leadership, and encouraging experimentation.

One of the foundational values underlying public interest technology is the importance of breaking down silos—between disciplines, between individuals, and between entire departments and schools. That commitment to collaboration extends to the institutional level. When universities come together around common goals for building the workforce of the future, they can build a stronger platform and bolster credibility. “The sharing of examples and practices among network members, along with opportunities for collaboration, can encourage us to stretch our ambitions to grander institutional and cross-institutional scales,“ said David Guston, founder of the School for the Future of Innovation in Society at Arizona State University.

According to interviewees, this approach is useful when it provides two key functions: formalizing structures and uplifting models and best practices.

1. Formalizing Structures

Through the University Network, university leaders have access to formal structures that make collaboration easier to define and execute. “UVA has really benefited from joining the PIT-UN collaborative, if for no other reason than that it gives a frame, focus, and deadlines for work that lots of us really care about and want to make sure we get done,” said Louis Nelson, vice provost for academic outreach at the University of Virginia. “Ideally, we will be able to work with colleagues throughout the collaborative who share common aims.”

“UVA has really benefited from joining the PIT UN collaborative, if for no other reason than that it gives a frame, focus, and deadlines for work that lots of us really care about and want to make sure we get done.”
-Louis Nelson, University of Virginia

The infrastructure currently offered by the University Network includes formal convenings where university faculty, staff, and leadership can share information and advice with their counterparts, often with additional perspective provided by other experts. Between convenings, network members can join quarterly calls to share updates on their work and ask each other specific questions. Members also have the option of joining working groups related to the thematic focus areas of the network.

“Everyone has challenges that are a little bit unique, but we are mainly dealing with the same challenges,” said Dan Black, public policy professor at the University of Chicago. “The network has heterogeneity in it, and having a broad network where people can talk about the difficulties is very valuable.”

The network’s small grants fund, which announced its first grants this fall, also represents progress toward providing formal support for network members. Some noted that the application process exposed them to efforts on their own campus that they had not known much about previously.

Taken together, the convenings, calls, working groups, funding, and other activities make the network more tangible for its members, sometimes providing the encouragement needed to take risks. “With structure comes a little more freedom,” said Andreen Soley, project manager for public and private partnerships for New America's Public Interest Technology program.

2. Uplifting Models and Best Practices

A key benefit of the network that many members articulated was its role as a forum for universities to explore different models for integrating PIT into their work. “I think it’s a great public good where you can both contribute to and benefit from the members of the network,” said Ramayya Krishnan, dean of the Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. “It’s been an invaluable opportunity to share best practices.”

“I think it’s a great public good where you can both contribute to and benefit from the members of the network. It’s been an interesting opportunity to share best practices."
–Ramayya Krishnan, Carnegie Mellon University

To make those lessons even more concrete, members are eager for resources that formally capture this learning. Howard University is currently developing a repository of case studies based on that demand. “If someone is trying to create another course in the same light that you have created, then you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. You can look at the teaching strategies and future ideas,” said Noha Hazzazi, assistant professor at Howard University.

Universities are not uniform, but nor does interdisciplinary programming need to be in order to provide valuable lessons, according to interviewees. Even the fact that universities, and even individuals, have different definitions of public interest technology does not necessarily hinder collaboration. “What is evident is that it is okay in the early stage of the field that we have different understandings of public interest technology,” said Pete Peterson, dean of Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy. “Seeing what my colleagues [at other institutions] are doing in curriculum and experiential learning is extremely helpful.”

Network members see the diversity of the involved institutions as a key benefit, since schools with different sizes, structures, and locations can experiment with different models and share their learning. As the network grows, some members even mentioned the potential benefits of welcoming international members.

The ability to share models and best practices is especially helpful considering that many universities face similar challenges. “I’ve found it very helpful because we see that other universities are dealing with similar issues, particularly with respect to work that does not fit and benefit from being in the buckets that academia creates for them,” said Tithi Chattopadhyay, associate director of the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University.

Collecting best practices also gives network members the opportunity to draw from previous work. Issues surrounding ethics and innovation aren’t restricted to digital technology, and therefore are not an entirely new form of study. Universities can look at existing structures on their own campuses and at other institutions for additional models of interdisciplinary programming and instruction. For example, the 13-year-old Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan has trained over 100 people in how to produce socially responsible technology.

University presidents and provosts play a critical role in supporting institutional progress on public interest technology. Using their platform and ability to set strategic priorities, university leadership can draw needed attention to the important work taking place on their campuses. Beyond that, they can garner additional support from collaborators, employers, funders, and other key stakeholders. “The role of the provost is to create an environment where people who want to work together can work together,” said Provost Bob Groves of Georgetown University.

Interviewees identified two key areas where leadership support has made a significant difference: building buy-in across the institution to support interdisciplinary work, and fostering an environment where taking risks and experimenting is encouraged.

1. Building Buy-in

The development of the University Network and the rise in public interest technology-related efforts at universities across the country represents a key opportunity for additional collaboration. At this pivotal moment, commitment from leadership can build momentum not just in individual institutions, but across academia. “To be able to see other deans take it on will encourage other deans to take on the PIT work. I think a lot of the momentum is helpful here so that there can be institutional buy-in,” Andreen Soley of New America said.

“Provosts and presidents have the ability to rally folks around ideas to mobilize behavior and providing where appropriate the necessary support to move forward.”
–Provost Mark Searle, Arizona State University

When university leaders use their platform to validate current efforts, that can also open up avenues to additional sources of logistical and financial support, particularly at the president and provost level. “Provosts and presidents have the ability to rally folks around ideas to mobilize behavior and providing where appropriate the necessary support to move forward,” said Provost Mark Searle of Arizona State University. For example, Eric T. Meyer, the dean of the School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin, credited supportive university leadership with spearheading efforts to expand PIT work on campus through support for initiatives like cluster hires spread across units. “If you show commitment from the top, that sets the tone,” Meyer said. “Our president and provost care about collaboration, and so they are creating opportunities to do this work.”

At Georgetown, a steering committee on technology and society with members from the law, medical, and main campuses reports directly to two executive vice presidents of the University: the provost and the dean of the law school. “Having senior leadership so directly involved has helped from a centralization perspective, so all faculties feel like they get their voices heard in a central space rather than in one faculty. For fundraising purposes, people need to see the buy-in from the top,” said Alexandra Givens, founding executive director of the Institute for Technology Law and Policy at Georgetown Law. The PIT-UN was possible in part because of support from the president and senior leadership. High-profile leaders make especially strong validators for the value of public interest technology programs, and their continued advocacy will be important for future progress.

2. Encouraging Risk

Leadership also plays a vital role in fostering an environment where faculty and staff feel comfortable experimenting with different approaches. “For me what’s critical is that you allow many different models—you don’t say this is how it’s meant to be,” said Ryan Calo, co-director of the University of Washington Tech Policy Lab, an interdisciplinary research unit involving the Law School, Information School, and School of Computer Science and Engineering. “But whatever the model is, you have to provide resources to support it, and try to remove barriers to interdisciplinary work.” For the Tech Policy Lab, that model includes having three co-equal directors with a rotating lead, and the Lab does not pursue projects that do not include two or more types of training. This is to ensure that the different disciplines involved are treated equally.

Part of this support includes tolerance for risk from university leadership. “I was surprised with how open they were with risk,” said Christopher Goranson, who runs the Carnegie Mellon Policy Innovation Lab. Goranson was able to design his course from the bottom up, not knowing how students would respond. “When I spoke to the associate dean, she was supportive of innovating in the classroom and also recognized that we would have to learn from each iteration. The new opportunities that this course provided—both to students and the government—was too great not to try something new,” he said. That flexibility also opened up opportunities for other parts of the university to benefit from experimentation. When an initial partner for Goranson’s class expressed interest in using a consulting model, Goranson and his colleagues were able to direct that partner to a different course that would be a better fit. “This was a good example of how if you have enough robust capacity in the university then you can satisfy a variety of needs,” Goranson said.