“For all the skepticism and for all their problems, the public and private research campuses and the public flows of money into them have created the single most effective system to producing and sharing new knowledge that has ever existed in human history. But just saying, ‘Trust us’ is no longer enough,” said Jason Owen-Smith, professor of sociology and organizational studies.
PBS NewsHour article “Facing skepticism, colleges set out to prove their value”
Colleges and universities seek to prove something once taken for granted: their value and importance, in dollars-and-sense terms that consumers understand in an article by Jon Marcus of the Hechinger Report. Jason Owen-Smith, IRIS Executive Director, comments that the UMETRICS effort, which has developed and expanded to become IRIS, is an important way data on innovation in science can be used by colleges and universities to show value.