The U.S. -- and California in particular -- have long held sway as the world’s innovation leaders. But, given the rapidly changing nature of the world and emergence of the global economy, they are in danger of losing the competitive edge they’ve had.

Significantly, this new economy is being fueled by exciting scientific developments arising out of basic research in nanotechnology, life sciences, information technology, and telecommunications. And these disciplinary areas are creating a spiral vortex, interpenetrating and changing each other as they themselves change. This is where the opportunity to stay competitive lies.

Giving the changing climate of competitiveness, the University of California has leveraged its strong research and technical capabilities to create a secret weapon: the California Institutes for Science and Innovation (Cal ISIs), which have the ability to drive innovation.

But to drive innovation, you must be innovative: Calit2 represents a new mechanism to address large-scale societal issues by bringing together multidisciplinary teams of the best minds (both on and beyond UC campuses) in a way that had been impossible earlier.

Calit2 is taking ideas beyond theory into practice, accelerating innovation and shortening the time to product development and job creation. Where the university traditionally has focused on education and research, Calit2 extends that focus to include development and deployment of prototype infrastructure for testing new solutions in a real-world context.

Calit2 represents an experiment in inventing the university research environment of the future to continue to fuel innovation in the global economy. It:

• Builds horizontal links among departments to foster multidisciplinary studies.
• Creates research teams consisting of members who can be located anywhere because of the Internet.
• Supports involvement by faculty, students, industry, government, and community partners.
• Enables prototyping in Calit2 "living laboratories."
• Provides technical professionals as the bridge between academia and industry.