Jim Olds
Schar School and Krasnow Institute
George Mason University

Abstract:

When we think of ‘Advanced Studies’ in the context of science, the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton (IAS) comes to mind as well as the notion of science at the ‘sticky edges’ of the disciplines unbundled from the teaching aspects of the academy. The fact that Einstein and other scientific luminaries were free to think and create in an environment conducive for such activities has left a long tail of goodwill for such places. Yet increasingly, the realities of flat funding and macro changes in the habits of philanthropists has left such idea incubators challenged. Perhaps now, nearly 100 years since the founding of the IAS would be a good time to rethink the underlying notion of Advanced Studies building on the current scientific community interest in team science and convergence. This presentation aims at such a reconsideration in the hope that places such as IAS can thrive in the future.