Randy Katz reflects on Berkeley’s Nobelists

EE Prof. Randy Katz, the current U.C. Berkeley Vice Chancellor for Research, reflects on how the use-inspired research of Berkeley Nobel Prize winners exemplifies the importance of that approach to scientific inquiry.   He illustrates the strength of use-inspired research by comparing it to basic (curiosity-driven) and applied (goal-driven) research, defining it as the “search for fundamental knowledge” with selected “questions and methods based on their relevance to real-world issues.”  “One of our great aims is to bring together a broad set of the world’s brightest minds to work on the pressing problems of the day,” he says.