capability needed for social innovation. Many steps are needed but
perhaps something along the following lines is required:
First, the Association of Land-Grant and State Universities needs
to set up a developmentally oriented commission to improve the con-
ceptualization of the function of using science for social innovation.
Organizational questions are unanswered and the regional and na-
tional components need to be considered. The Association was very
active with committees during the early development of the coopera-
tive extension enterprise and counseled with congressional leaders of
their time.
Second, there is a rising tide of public concern over institutional
obsolescence. Many leaders are disenchanted with the “muddling
through” process of institutional reform. Many areas of this public
concern need to be made more visable and the people, including
youth, helped to call on the university for research and educational
support to meet their knowledge needs. The swine growers have done
this with great success. The idea is to consciously enlarge the public
support base for aiding research that is oriented to improve taxation,
schooling, legal processes, waste disposal, etc.
Third, the Farm Foundation or some similarly interested support
group needs, in the short run, to provide funds for enabling those
universities which lead out to obtain counsel and to articulate for the
benefit of others how they succeed, or not, in solving the many prob-
lems in their developmental task.
We can say for certain that if university leaders do not talk about
how to achieve the capacity for social innovation and, if they do not
try to conceptualize and organize to develop that capacity, then the
capacity to use science in that way will not originate in the university.
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