Higher Education ? Innovate or Perish: Why Disruption of Higher Education Is Imminent

We live in a golden age of technological innovation and commercialization, which has enhanced value creation and prosperity and significantly transformed our daily lives from physical to digital. While universities have played a critical role in this transformation, they now see enormous challenges in sustaining the discoveries, inventions, and innovations brought on by rapid technology obsolescence and even faster commercialization driven by transformational digital technologies. Innovation and the 21st-Century Research University examines the limitations of commercializing fast-paced innovation within today's university systems and outlines a way forward for a new generation of foundational institutions to create an end-to-end seamless value chain. The authors share their vision for a new educational, R&D, and incubator ecosystem for the 21st Century that will continue to drive science and technology, research, and innovation for societal good at the local, regional, national, and global scale and offer a new age of digital equity, growth, and prosperity. 

The authors, both business and academic leaders with diverse technology industry experience, offer critical insights into the complex and evolving world of innovation, R&D, deep tech, entrepreneurship, and commercializing innovation. It is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the structural and systemic reforms needed in our education system and their impact on higher education and future generations.   

Suresh Sharma is a business and academic leader with diverse experience in technology, entrepreneurship, and innovation. He is recognized for his exceptional knowledge of commercializing innovations and has significantly contributed to venture capital, investments, and entrepreneurship. As a former GE executive-turned-entrepreneur, Mr. Sharma has a unique understanding of building profitable innovation ecosystems in private, public, and university domains worldwide. In addition to his extensive industry experience, Mr. Sharma is actively involved in academic research and teaching. He served as a special faculty member at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he worked with cutting-edge R&D teams to commercialize innovations in various fields, including energy, digital technologies, sensors, analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), nanomaterials, power electronics, manufacturing, biotech, and biomedical areas. He is co-author of the books Energy 2040: Aligning Innovation, Economics and Decarbonization (2024) and Industrializing Innovation – The Next Revolution (2019), and author of The 3rd American Dream (2014) and has extensively published in leading technology journals, magazines, and newspapers. Mr. Sharma has created significant value in energy, power, and healthcare through his entrepreneurial journey. He has served on the boards of public and private companies and in VC/PE investment firms.

Jagdish N. Sheth, Ph.D., is the Charles H. Kellstadt Professor of Business at the Goizueta Business School, Emory University. He has over 60 years of combined experience in teaching and research at the University of Southern California (USC), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), Columbia University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Emory University. Dr. Sheth is a recipient of the 2020 Padma Bhushan Award for Literature and Education, one of the highest civilian awards given by the Government of India. He is also a Fellow of the Academy of International Business (AIB), Association of Consumer Research (ACR), American Psychological Association (APA) and American Marketing Association (AMA); a Distinguished Fellow of the Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) International Engineering Consortium (IEC). Dr. Sheth received an Honorary Doctorate in Science, awarded by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2016), and an Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy, awarded by Shiv Nadar University (2017). He has received all four top American Marketing Association (AMA) awards. Professor Sheth has authored or co-authored more than three hundred papers and several books. His autobiography, The Accidental Scholar (2014), has inspired others in education and academic entrepreneurship. His latest book is India’s Road to Transformation: Why Leadership Matters (2024). Dr. Sheth is the Founder of the Center for Telecommunications Management (CTM) at the University of Southern California (USC), which has now become an Institute. He is also the Founder and Chairman of the India, China, and America (ICA) Institute, which analyzes the trilateral relationship and its impact on geopolitics, security, trade, and investment. He and his wife, Madhu Sheth, have established the Sheth Family Foundation to support several charities in India and the United States. They have also established the Madhuri and Jagdish Sheth Foundation to support scholars and scholarship in the marketing field. The Sheth Foundation supports the AMA-Sheth Foundation Doctoral Consortium, hosted annually by different universities. It also supports research in emerging fields through AMA, ACR, AMS, and AIB. Finally, Professor Sheth is the Founder and Chairman of the Academy of Indian Marketing (AIM), which supports research and scholarship among Indian scholars in marketing and management.