By Lara Levin
Student writer

Dean Ernest J. Wilson III welcomed researcher Craig Calhoun (pictured) Feb. 11 for the ongoing USC Annenberg Series on Sustainable Innovation, where Calhoun discussed the importance of experts in various fields establishing relationships with each other and reflexively analyzing the condition of their work to build innovative knowledge and engineer innovative practices.

As part of the lecture series co-sponsored by the USC School of Policy Planning and Development, Calhoun gave a public lecture on the role of interdisciplinarity in innovation within the context of the research university structure.

“Academics have a hard time reaching out beyond their field of expertise,” said Calhoun, who is president of the Social Science Research Council, University Professor of the Social Sciences at New York University and founding director of NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge. “Inside conversations are highly valued, and outside conversations are seen as extra.”

As his main point, Calhoun outlined the paramount importance of establishing relationships between academic researchers and the public, citing public feedback and academic reflection as the means through which innovation in the realm of research practices occurs.

Calhoun went on to note a similar perception with regard to the public viewpoint of academic research as a sort of extra, optional knowledge. Within the sphere of the relationship and discourse between the public and academics is Calhoun’s idea of “necessary knowledge,” namely the research-driven knowledge that academics build within their field and then market to the public as something other than optional or extra.

“Academics are brilliant at innovating content, but they are blind to practices and conditions,” he said.  “Change only counts as innovation when there is some degree of self knowledge. Innovation is continuous as long as we learn from the process by which change is being made.”

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