I was talking to the Vice Chancellor of a large university yesterday. The conversation got around to innovation which occurs when two unrelated disciplines collide. He mentioned that the problem with university departments is that they are great at forming relationships with their counterparts on the other side of the world, but terrible at forging new relationships with completely different departments on their own campus.

Failure to look outside your immediate field only serves to foster group think within a body of knowledge. What you really want is lots of little fires which are born from the friction sparks that happen when two sectors crash together.

This is what I call idea arbitrage – taking ideas from one field and dropping them into another. It can start entire new directions of thinking and generate great outcomes.

What was interesting to note was the Vice Chancellors approach to overcoming the problem of insular departments. He said that the problem rests mainly with the academic staff. He had a great quote – “nobody has told the students that they should not interact with other departments.”

He’s working to create an inter-disciplinary institute where conversations freely flow between students in different departments.

It promises to be a very different approach for universities in New Zealand. And that can only be a good thing.