Scott Shenker
Professor of Computer Science, UC Berkeley
Group Leader of Networking, International Computer Science Institute (ICSI)

When [Intel Director of Research] David Tennenhouse told me the idea he had for a new network of university research labs, I said I thought it would never work. I was completely wrong. The labs have proven to be a brilliant way to capture academic talent.

Initially, I didn't realize the extent to which Intel was willing to pursue open research. Because of its open and collaborative model, Intel was able to recruit very high-level academic researchers as lab directors. This has enabled the labs to capture a much larger mind share of academic departments than any of the other research groups that I've seen. That, to me, was the brilliant insight.

One of the real dangers of industrial research labs is that, despite everybody's best effort to the contrary, they become isolated and self-reinforcing. The Intel labs, by being small and so closely connected to the university, have a constant influx of new ideas and new talent. That 's one aspect of the labs that I think is really crucial.

The Intel Research Berkeley lab, under the leadership of David Culler and now Joe Hellerstein, has provided a set of tremendously exciting and world-changing projects in PlanetLab and sensor networks. The intellectual depth of the ideas involved, their potential to change the world, and the level of resources Intel has made available for these projects has been extraordinary. It's hard to overestimate the impact of these two projects. Getting 300 Internet hosts up and running as a testbed [PlanetLab], for example, has changed the way systems research is done. It has also changed my world, in the sense that several of the projects I'm working on have been deployed on PlanetLab. This would not have been possible without the resources Intel made available to the Berkeley lab.

PlanetLab and sensor networks are examples of the kinds of research projects that require such large-scale corporate support in order for the research to have a broad impact on the world. You would not get the same impact if a startup were trying to commercialize the research. Sensor networks are a perfect example. A start-up would be looking for niches where the technology could be applied. It wouldn't be looking to create the general purpose TinyOS design or the motes that Intel Research Berkeley has helped to develop, which made sensor networks very available to a broad community of researchers.

Intel's open and collaborative research model has set a new standard for university-industry research. Being very open and public about the agreement between Intel Research Berkeley and UC Berkeley not only helped the relationship between Intel and the campus; it also gave the campus a template that it can show to other companies who want to collaborate, as a starting point for the discussion. I think that openness helps to preserve the integrity of university research.