The Busch Center: An Organization Designed to Insure Quality Academic Research on Real World Problems

Recently Interfaces has published numerous discussions about the readability and relevance of the articles typically published in Management Science. Since members of the academic community are responsible for the vast majority of the Management Science publication, there is a more fundamental question raised by the content of these articles: are universities doing the appropriate types of research in the management sciences? If universities are not addressing the right problems, then the long term growth of the entire profession is seriously threatened.

I believe the answer to the problem lies in a redesign of academic programs to insure a real world context in research efforts. I base this belief on the experience of two management science-oriented programs in the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, where a real-world focus to research has always been an explicit part of both programs. The programs, Operations Research and Social Systems Science, were designed by Russell Ackoff and reflect the applications-oriented philosophy he has maintained throughout his association with the management science profession.