240 unifying physics of accelerators, lasers and plasma
of instruments that every university will aspire to have. The
ability to obtain a compact X-ray laser would revolutionize
contemporary science and technology yet again — not unlike
how the spread of near-visible light lasers impacted science
and industry during the 20th century.
11.6 How to learn TRIZ in science
In this second-to-last section, I would like to convey to the
reader my personal impressions of the best ways to learn (and
also teach) the methodologies of inventiveness in the science
departments of universities. These impressions are based on
the development of training programs involving TRIZ at the
John Adams Institute for Accelerator Science — JAI — at Oxford University, Imperial College and Royal Holloway University of London.
The JAI is a center of excellence in the UK for advanced
and novel accelerator technology. We focus on researching
and developing accelerator science and techniques, as well
as graduate training. Our cohort of PhD students numbers
around three dozen, and on average we educate about six
PhD experts per year. Like any other research organization
or graduate school, we are motivated to turn the results of
our research into having a positive societal impact, as well as
endeavoring to find ways to be more inventive and innovative. For the latter, we recently (several years ago) started to
look at TRIZ and developed a specific, scientifically oriented
way to introduce this method to our PhD students.
Let us briefly review TRIZ and its connection to science
graduate schools. TRIZ is the methodology of inventiveness
that was specifically developed for engineering fields. It was
created during the second half of the 20th century and gradually became one of the most powerful tools in the industrial
world. TRIZ has become, according to Forbes, the bedrock of
innovations of such companies as Samsung, as well as many
others.
While the TRIZ method of industrial inventiveness was
originally created for engineering, this methodology is universal and can also be applied to science. However, experience shows that knowledge of TRIZ is nearly nonexistent in
the scientific departments of western universities.
Moreover, it is not rare to hear about unsuccessful attempts to introduce TRIZ into graduate courses of scientific
departments of universities. Indeed, in many or most of these
cases, the apparent reason for the failure was that the canonical version of TRIZ was introduced to science PhD students
in the same way that TRIZ is taught to engineers in industrial companies. This appears to be a mistake, seeing as science students are rightfully more critically minded and justifiably sceptical about overly prescriptive step-by-step meth
of instruments that every university will aspire to have. The
ability to obtain a compact X-ray laser would revolutionize
contemporary science and technology yet again — not unlike
how the spread of near-visible light lasers impacted science
and industry during the 20th century.
11.6 How to learn TRIZ in science
In this second-to-last section, I would like to convey to the
reader my personal impressions of the best ways to learn (and
also teach) the methodologies of inventiveness in the science
departments of universities. These impressions are based on
the development of training programs involving TRIZ at the
John Adams Institute for Accelerator Science — JAI — at Oxford University, Imperial College and Royal Holloway University of London.
The JAI is a center of excellence in the UK for advanced
and novel accelerator technology. We focus on researching
and developing accelerator science and techniques, as well
as graduate training. Our cohort of PhD students numbers
around three dozen, and on average we educate about six
PhD experts per year. Like any other research organization
or graduate school, we are motivated to turn the results of
our research into having a positive societal impact, as well as
endeavoring to find ways to be more inventive and innovative. For the latter, we recently (several years ago) started to
look at TRIZ and developed a specific, scientifically oriented
way to introduce this method to our PhD students.
Let us briefly review TRIZ and its connection to science
graduate schools. TRIZ is the methodology of inventiveness
that was specifically developed for engineering fields. It was
created during the second half of the 20th century and gradually became one of the most powerful tools in the industrial
world. TRIZ has become, according to Forbes, the bedrock of
innovations of such companies as Samsung, as well as many
others.
While the TRIZ method of industrial inventiveness was
originally created for engineering, this methodology is universal and can also be applied to science. However, experience shows that knowledge of TRIZ is nearly nonexistent in
the scientific departments of western universities.
Moreover, it is not rare to hear about unsuccessful attempts to introduce TRIZ into graduate courses of scientific
departments of universities. Indeed, in many or most of these
cases, the apparent reason for the failure was that the canonical version of TRIZ was introduced to science PhD students
in the same way that TRIZ is taught to engineers in industrial companies. This appears to be a mistake, seeing as science students are rightfully more critically minded and justifiably sceptical about overly prescriptive step-by-step meth