Making an Impact

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The US is using an antiquated system of research that wastes time and resources, and results in fewer impactful cancer treatments, says cancer expert Greg Simon. To maximise innovation, changes should be made at university level, said Simon, director of the Biden Cancer Initiative at the Biden Foundation, at the Times Higher Education Innovation and Impact Summit, which took place from May 31 to June 2 organised by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) and Times Higher Education.

“Everything has changed, including the way we communicate, shop, travel, bank, take a photo, and find directions,” Simon said. “But we still conduct research the way we did at the end of the Second World War. Everything has to change in the way the universities operate.” 

Simon is the former executive director of the White House Cancer Moonshot Task Force. He was appointed by the Obama administration in March 2016, and worked with former vice president Joe Biden to try and double the impact of cancer research. Simon worked with the Task Force, academia, and the private sector, to forge new collaborations to develop innovations. The idea was to use the research to enable practical steps forward: “If you don’t start, innovation is just an idea,” he said.

The “War on Cancer” began in 1971, when President Nixon signed the National Cancer Act into law in the US. Since then, the goal has been to use research to bring about impactful health outcomes, rather than simply publish. This is known as “translational research”. The tenure system, with its emphasis on publication, means that universities are lagging behind in this, said Simon. “The path to tenure is the problem,” he says. “It is far too heavy on publication and too light on impact.” As a result, innovation often happens outside of universities, in small biotech companies that “take the ideas which have reached their limit inside the university environment,” Simon said.