The new ABCs of research - Ben Shneiderman

The problems we face in the 21st century require innovative thinking from all of us. Be it students, academics, business researchers of government policy makers. Hopes for improving our healthcare, food supply, community safety and environmental sustainability depend on the pervasive application of research solutions.
The research heroes who take on the immense problems of our time face bigger than ever challenges, but if they adopt potent guiding principles and effective research lifecycle strategies, they can produce the advances that will enhance the lives of many people. These inspirational research leaders will break free from traditional thinking, disciplinary boundaries, and narrow aspirations.
They will be bold innovators and engaged collaborators, who are ready to lead, yet open to new ideas,self-confident, yet empathetic to others.In this book, Ben Shneiderman recognizes the unbounded nature of human creativity, the multiplicative power of teamwork, and the catalytic effects of innovation. He reports on the growing number of initiatives to promote more integrated approaches to research so as to promote the expansion of these efforts. It is meant as a guide to students and junior researchers, as well as a manifesto for senior researchers and policy makers, challenging widely-held beliefs about how applied innovationsevolve and how basic breakthroughs are made, and helping to plot the course towards tomorrow's great advancements.

Ben Shneiderman is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Founding Director (1983-2000) of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory at the University of Maryland.
His development of
user interfaces such as the highlighted clickable link for the web, small touchscreen keyboards, and information visualization concepts earned him membership in the National Academy of Engineering.

Professor Shneiderman has written an original, carefully thought out and trenchantly argued manifesto for a new way of doing research in universities, which has implications for all of us...not only is this required reading for decision makers in universities and government, but designers of socio-technical systems of all kinds can learn something from it.
Nick de Voil , BCS

The New ABCs of Research deserves a readership for the boldness of its ambition and the promise of its ideas. They deserve debate and implementation.
Rick Rylance, Nature

I found it hard to find anything in Shneiderman's book I disagreed with ... I found myself in agreement with Shneiderman's narrative and the examples he presents, including the fact that the dominant players in the Internet space such as Google, Facebook,Microsoft, and Apple are applying theABC and SED principles successfully.
Vasant Dhar, Big Data

Real breakthroughs come when applied and basic research resonate and collide. Then science, engineering, and design team up to speed the flow of innovation.
Shneiderman's new book shows how.
Vint Cerf, VP and Chief Internet Evangelist, Google

This is
a must-read book for those of us that want to create radical innovations and breakthrough scientific advances to solve the 'wicked' problems surrounding us in the 21st Century. It also provides valuable advice for policy makers and organizations that fund basic research.
It is both inspirational and pragmatic with many examples that illustrate how to achieve a productive bridge between applied and basic research
- a bridge
that creates a "unity ofpurpose, which promotes the raised ambition of doing both." To do both we need tools and mindsets that advance deep collaboration and that help us jump epistemic borders. This requires deep listening and more importantly, a sense of humility.
John Seely Brown, Former Chief Scientist, Xerox Corporation and director of its Palo Alto Research Center (Xerox PARC).

Ben Shneiderman's powerful and important new book makes the strong case that we must integrate studies of practical problems with the development of theory: each supports and drives the other. This strong, highly readable book presents well-reasoned arguments combined with powerful case studies. Academia has gone too far with its emphasis on theoretical abstraction and discipline silos: It is time to blend engineering, science, social sciences, business, and the arts.
Don Norman, Prof. and Director, The Design Lab, University of California, San Diego and former Vice President of Apple.

I absolutely love it all! The New ABCs of Research captures, catalogues and advocates for exactly what we need to be doing in research and scholarship at a major research university. It beautifully describes the combination of basic, interdisciplinary, and translational research with partners that is so powerful and so needed. I want to capture it for our strategic plan.
Mary Ann Rankin, Provost, University of Maryland

It's excellent ... a critically important research manifesto in the spirit of Vannevar Bush's 1945 Science: The Endless Frontier.
Rita Colwell, Director, U. S. National Science Foundation (1998-2004)

Ben Shneiderman's New ABCs of Research presents a compelling, even-handed argument for a new paradigm for interdisciplinary collaboration that puts engineering and design on an equal footing with basic science. This well-written book is full of sound observations and sage advice for students and young researchers alike, while at the same time providing plenty of food for thought for established researchers and policy makers.
Henry Petroski, Aleksandar S. Vesic Professor of Civil Engineering and Professor of History, Duke University

Innovation powers economic growth.
But how to achieve true breakthrough innovations? Ben Shneiderman's The New ABCs of Research explodes the myth that innovation is the product of lone inventors and shows how the key lies in collaboration and conducting applied and basic research together. It's a must read for those who are looking to spur innovation in the academic, corporate, startup and urban innovation communities.
Richard Florida, University of Toronto

I am in complete harmony with the theme presented.
I have no doubt about the accelerated progress gained by connecting the most fundamental thinking to potential applications.
Very often the big hit applications turn out to be something not initially considered but the back and forth between utility and understanding stimulates the expanding visions that fuel all avenues.
Dan Mote, President, National Academy of Engineering