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1、.美国耶鲁大学校长里查德雷文教授发表主旨讲演：大学如何服务于社会Keynote Address: Chinese-Foreign University Presidents ForumPresident Richard C. LevinJuly 18, 2006Shanghai, China中外大学校长论坛I am greatly honored by the invitation of the Ministry of Education to participate in this important biannual forum involving the presidents of Ch
2、inas leading universities and others from around the world. This is a propitious time for such a gathering, as those of us outside China continue to watch with admiration the enormous investment your country is making to improve the capacity, quality, and international standing of your universities.
3、 I want to express my gratitude to Minister Zhou Ji for taking the initiative to organize this event. I am delighted to participate. I have been asked to discuss how universities serve their society. This is a question well worth asking, at a time of such massive investment and growth here in China.
4、 To answer the question, I will draw mainly on the experience of American universities, not because their contributions are unique or more important than those of universities elsewhere. I focus on the U.S. experience strictly because I know it best, and I do so in full recognition that some of the
5、lessons learned in my country may not apply directly to China. So let me go straight to the answer. I believe that universities serve their society in many ways, but I will focus on the contribution that they make through three activities in particular: research, education, and institutional citizen
6、ship. First, by advancing knowledge of science, technology, and medicine universities create the foundation for economic growth, material well-being and improvements in human health. Second, by educating students to be capable of flexible, adaptive, and creative responses to changing conditions, uni
7、versities strengthen their societys capacity to innovate. And, third, by serving as models of institutional citizenship, universities make a direct contribution to social betterment and inspire their students to recognize obligation to serve. Let me discuss each type of service to society in turn. U
8、niversity Research as an Engine of Economic Growth In the modern economy, global competitive advantage derives primarily from a nations capacity to innovate, to introduce and develop new products, processes, and services. This has clearly been the foundation of Americas economic leadership in the pe
9、riod following the Second World War. And one important element in sustaining that leadership has been the strength of American science. As the principal locus of basic research, Americas universities play a key role in sustaining our nations competitiveness and economic growth. Basic research, by de
10、finition, is motivated by curiosity and the quest for knowledge, without a clear, practical objective. Yet basic research is the source from which all commercially oriented applied research and development ultimately flows. I say ultimately because it often takes decades before the commercial implic
11、ations of an important scientific discovery are fully realized. The commercial potential of a particular discovery is often unanticipated, and often extends to many unrelated industries and applications. In other words, the development of innovative products and services that occurs today usually de
12、pends on advances in basic research achieved ten, twenty, or fifty years ago - most often without any idea of the eventual consequences. The emergence of universities as Americas primary basic research machine did not come about by accident. Rather, it was the product of a wise and farsighted nation
13、al science policy, set forth in an important 1946 report that established the framework for an unprecedented and heavily subsidized system in support of scientific research that has propelled the American economy. The system rested upon three principles that remain largely intact today. First, the f
14、ederal government shoulders the principal responsibility for financing basic science. Second, universities - rather than government laboratories, non-teaching research institutes, or private industry - are the primary institutions in which this government-funded research is undertaken. And, third, a
15、lthough the federal budgetary process determines the total funding available for each of the various fields of science, most funds are allocated, not according to commercial or political considerations, but through an intensely competitive process of review conducted by independent scientific expert
16、s who judge proposals on their scientific merit alone. This system of organizing science has been an extraordinary success, scientifically and economically. To ensure that university-based scientific research truly contributes to national well-being requires that ideas move from theory to practice. For much of the period following World War II, most U.S. universities did not actively seek to participate in the translation
