Duke Student Center for Integrated  Education, Research and Development (CIERD)

  The mission of the Student Center for Integrated Education, Research, and Development (CIERD) is to foster effective interaction, collaboration and intellectual exchange between students from various departments at Duke University and to facilitate integration of different educational and research fields. CIERD was proposed to serve students interested in multidisciplinary research and how such research can contribute to new product design, state of the art disease treatment, environmental safety, economic growth, and societal development.

The Center will establish the network of department representatives throughout the university to facilitate exchange of information between graduate and professional students. Some of the Center's goals will be organizing a forum for discussing new trends in science; creating and developing novel ideas related to integrative  research*; establish a supportive and interactive atmosphere in which students can interact and collaborate; discussing research that can lead to new products and technology; inviting distinguished speakers conducting interdisciplinary research; providing an opportunity for students to discuss research and share technology with an audience which is not focused in that specific field; integrating different fields of education and research to create new scientific frontiers that can facilitate to economic growth, effectiveness of health care and societal development.

Current limitations:  With the complexity of modern research and development, scientific innovations often require a wide range of knowledge in numerous fields of research. Inventions we use daily ranging from airplanes to non-stick cookware were developed through collaboration between engineers and scientists in different areas of research and technology. These collaborations were made possible by effective teamwork and communication between professionals with various backgrounds. Often stumbling blocks, however, still exist to hinder this teamwork and communication in an university research environment. An overly focused knowledge of scientific facets in science can lead to limited understanding of possible relevance in other fields. The use of very specific vocabulary within a field can be intimidating and confusing for others, limiting effective communication. Finally opportunities for professionals to interact and communicate on a regular basis with colleagues in other fields must be increased to facilitate collaboration.

Over the past decade, several initiatives have been undertaken to create resources for multidisciplinary research in science, particularly in the rapidly growing fields including but not limited to nano- and biotechnology, computational biology, and genetics. Multidisciplinary research also raises issues in economic development, environmental protection, and overall societal enrichment. Recently faculty here at Duke University have taken an active role in addressing the above issues, and have organized several centers focused on multidisciplinary research in science.  Examples of such centers are the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology , which combines biology, biochemistry, medicine and computer science, the Center for Biologically Inspired Materials & Material Systems , which focuses on the study and design applications for biologically inspired materials, the Center for Biomolecular and Tissue Engineering, which integrates protein, cellular and tissue engineering, the Center for Microbial Pathogenesis  and the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center.

  With the support from Duke University CIERD will organize a network of student representatives from different departments and promote an informal seminar series addressing topics in various fields of science. Such seminar series will include participation of faculty members and students from Duke and other universities across the country. Another segment of Center's activities will be the establishment of discussion sessions in the format of journal clubs, which currently exist independently in several departments. The focus of these discussion sessions, however, will be on research which effectively combines different fields of science. Examples of such interdisciplinary research can be, for instance, found in nano- and biotechnology, genetics, computational biology and biomedical engineering.

  CIERD will follow current trends in science and discuss recent industrial applications of interdisciplinary research. To facilitate the discussions related to the design of new products and tools the Center will work towards establishing contacts with local industrial and research companies designing products based on high end technology in medicine and engineering. The Center will provide help in  generating research ideas which can impact the development of new scientific fields and can facilitate economic growth in an environmentally responsible manner. Finally the Center will discuss issues peripherally related to technical research such as how interdisciplinary education and research can facilitate the development of science and improvements of the society as a whole. To address the importance of science and technology in economic and social development, CIERD will also solicit participation from students in the schools of Public Policy and Business.

  Topics of the discussion will range from individual work of the students within the Center to integrative research being performed in different institutions worldwide. Discussion will be open to address the issues such as: what knowledge and resources are necessary to conduct the proposed research; how can the proposed research be related to ongoing research in other fields; how can the presented study be applied practically in product development, disease treatment and how may the research extend and complement other valuable studies.

  The Center will greatly benefit both continuing and entering graduate students. Through the network of department representatives, CIERD will expose incoming graduate students to interdisciplinary research ongoing in their respective departments.  The Center will also regularly organize tours of different laboratories at Duke that perform cutting-edge scientific research.

CIERD will work toward establishing collaboration with existing faculty-based centers such as the Center for Biologically Inspired Materials (CBIMMS), the Center for Tissue Engineering (CBTE), the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center , etc. Through such collaboration professors conducting integrative research will be invited to informally present and share ideas on the research conducted in their laboratories. The Center will recognize the Duke University Policy on Inventions, Patents and Technology Transfer and will not take actions that detract from the value of intellectual property developed with Duke resources. If any inventions or other intellectual property arise from discussions facilitated by the Center, that Intellectual property will be treated in accordance with the Duke Policy, and the Center will make no claim to the intellectual property. 

* “Integrative research” will herein refer to research which combines knowledge in various fields of science, including but not limited to medical sciences, biology, engineering, computer science, physics and chemistry.