what is a research vision

Here is what you should do to generate your vision

For several year’s now, I have been working with researchers to develop their research vision. In the beginning, some researchers thought this was a little strange, and I was even met with the comment, “Tamika, a vision is something companies have”!

However, since then, there have been several examples of why having a vision for your research is necessary.

Examples of why you should have a research vision

The first of these came from a blog post looking at the elements of research impact pathways. This work had looked at the Research Excellence Framework impact narratives from the 2014 assessment in the UK and determined the common features of the successful pathways, of which the first element was a clear vision. The second example was a media piece from the University of Toronto , where a Canadian researcher Dr Anna Taddio, was interviewed. In that article, Dr Taddio clearly stated her research vision and even called it her vision. The third reason for having a vision for your research, came as recently as this year when the National Health and Medical Research Council in Australia introduced a specific section into the Investigator Grant proposal asking for the project vision.

What is your research vision?

Well, you can have several, you may have one that is your career vision, and you may have one for each of your research projects or a program of work. In each case, your vision is your destination postcard.

Benefits of knowing your vision

Aside from the need for this in grants, a career vision will help you make decisions and stop you from getting detracted from what you want to achieve. Often researchers and in particular, early career researchers, tell me that they have so much to do and different opportunities that they don’t know which ones to accept and reject. Having a clear vision can help you to decide if the answer is yes or no. When you know where you are heading, you can say no to all the shiny new objects that take you off your path, unless of course, that’s where you want to go.

A program or project level vision is useful in two ways.

• It helps you to clearly articulate where the work is heading and attract likeminded team members and collaborators. When you know and work to your vision, it connects the team and brings everyone on the journey.
• A clear research vision is useful in talking to external collaborators, it gives you and them clarity about why you are undertaking the work, and it helps you to know if you align well with their organisation.

Articulating your research vision

Now we need to consider your vision, not an easy task. This takes time to get it right. Everyone has different ways of creating their vision and usually what happens with researchers is that we make the vision too detailed and wordy. That’s why my preferred structure is to write out both your vision and mission as follows.

Your vision statement describes what you want to achieve in the future. How long to the “future” will depend on if this is for a project or your career. Your vision should inspire you, and in the case of a project vision, it should inspire your team. A vision helps shape your understanding of why you are doing what you do. Your vision is your WHY.

Your mission is about the present state; it is the detail underpinning your vision. Your mission answers the following questions:

• What do I do?
• How do I do it?
• Who do I do it for?

Example of research vision

I mentioned earlier the article from the University of Toronto , in that article, Dr Anna Taddio outlined her vision.

My vision is to make children all over the world healthier by improving their experiences during needle procedures. Dr Anna Taddio

Reading the article further, I was able to ascertain the answers to the questions required for a mission statement.

• How: increasing the number of vaccinated youth through the implementation of interventions and programs.
• Who: Youth aged 6-18
• What: best research evidence on managing pain and fear of needles

Take a look at the article , and you can see that by understanding her vision and mission, Dr Taddio was able to articulate her work clearly and tell the reader why she is doing it.

Have you written your vision for your project or career?

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Writing a research vision document

When you are applying for a faculty position or when you are working on your tenure and promotion package, you are often asked to write your research vision.

If you didn’t write a research vision before and you are currently not planning on applying for a new position or promotion, please don’t leave the classroom just yet. Thinking about your research vision is a valuable exercise – whether you are at the end of your PhD and thinking about what’s next, or whether you are a seasoned professor.

A clear research vision will help you make decisions on the type of collaborations to take on, which types of funding to pursue, and what, overall, you want to work towards with your research.

Before you get started with crafting your research vision document, you need to think about the core of your research. Cathy Mazak calls this your academic mission statement , and when I did her exercise, I found it very insightful. I particularly like how short and focused her template for writing the statement is. With all credit to Cathy Mazak’s work, here is the template she has proposed:

I use [methodologies/theoretical frames] to study [population] [phenomenon] [context] in order to [change you want to see in the world].

From your academic mission statement, you can write your research vision. In today’s post, I’d like to share eight tips on how to write a coherent and compelling research vision, which is also useful for you in making decisions and figuring out where you want to go with your research:

1. Reflect on your academic identity

Before writing your research vision, start by thinking about yourself as a researcher. What are you passionate about? What is the change you wish to see in the world? What do you enjoy doing? Which methods and skills are you good at?

2. Identify your niche

Can you answer me in one sentence what you are the absolute expert at in this world? We all have are specific niche, which is often the result of your previous training and where you studied, combined with the topics you have been and want to address.

3. Define research questions

All research starts from strong research questions , so outline the big research question you have based on what you’d like to achieve in the next five to ten years, and then identify various subquestions. You can link these subquestions then to projects to pursue ( and the related opportunities for funding ) as well as to various graduate student thesis projects .

4. Describe your research impact

If you achieve the change you wish to see in the world, who will benefit from this? What will your students learn in class from you thanks to your findings? How can your ideas be implemented in industry or in policies? How will society at large benefit from your work?

5. Fit your work into the broader scope

How does your research vision work towards achieving one or more of the UN sustainable development goals? How does it align with your university’s academic mission, and/or with policies and long-term goals set by the government?

6. Be practical

To achieve your research vision, what will you need to do? Which types of funding do you need to apply and obtain? How many people do you need in your team? Which equipment do you need to bring?

7. Plan at various levels

In your research vision statement, you can show your short-term, middle-term, and long-term goals that you want to achieve to work towards your vision on a step-by-step basis.

8. Write for your reader

If you are writing for yourself, you may not need to explain everything. If you are writing for a university-wide panel of professors, then avoid jargon and make sure that your language is clear to understand. Don’t write a dull text, but write something that sparkles with enthusiasm – you want to show how you can achieve that change you wish to see in the world.

Crafting your research vision may be something that takes time – you may want to reserve a good chunk of time to reflect on how you can make this world a better place through your research. It also needs time and iterations between your first draft and your final document. You may want to discuss your vision with your supervisor and colleagues, and get their input and suggestions along the way. Ultimately, once you have your research vision, it is good practice to revisit this often and see if you are still passionate about the same topics, if you are working in alignment with your vision, and to check if there are any important goals you should reserve time for in your upcoming year.

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Creating a mission and vision statement for our research group

Published: January 16, 2012

Author: Jessica Hellmann

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Our research vision, philosophy and methods

The  CEBM Research  vision is to be a global source of high quality evidence, on which clinical decisions can be reliably based.

To achieve this vision we will:

• Generate and synthesise high-quality evidence that benefits patients and society.
• Improve the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of common primary care conditions.
• Build innovative tools to increase the impact of healthcare data in the real world.
• Deliver timely, innovative, and relevant outputs that directly affect policy and affect practice.  
• Develop tools and materials for the general public to better understand research evidence and healthcare findings.
• Build research capacity by supporting the next generation of research leaders.

Research pedigree

For over 20 years, the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine has been dedicated to conducting research for the benefit of patients, providers, and society.  Over 20 individuals work in the Centre, with diverse backgrounds, including clinicians, methodologists, statisticians, and research administrators. We also have a global network of international research collaborators, supporting the delivery of our vision, from Europe, Africa, Canada, the USA, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, and India. What unites them is a collective endeavour to provide high-quality evidence, on which clinical decisions can be reliably based.

We are based in the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at the University of Oxford. Our institution is ranked  number one  in the world university rankings and our department is ranked  number one  in the UK for the quality of its research.

Research philosophy

We align our research with the principles outlined in the  EBM Manifesto . In our research we seek to:

• involve patients, health professionals, and policy makers in the prioritisation, design, implementation, and dissemination of our results;
• prioritise systematic reviews and synthesis of existing evidence;
• be relevant, replicable, and accessible to identified end users;
• question clinical and research practices that may introduce biases, including research methods, scientific reporting, and conflicts of interests;
• apply world-leading expertise in research that underpins regulations of medications and devices;
• produce high-quality research that supports patient-focused clinical guidelines;
• support quality improvement in existing research methods and introducing innovative methods;
• share expertise and support the next generation of EBM research leaders.

Research methods

We use applied and translational research methods to generate new knowledge, in order to inform healthcare decision making. Furthermore, we use our skills and expertise to identify, develop, and appropriately apply existing and new research methods, to achieve our vision.

Examples of the research methods we use include:

• Systematic reviews and evidence synthesis
• Quantitative methods, including clinical trials, Diagnostic Test Accuracy, and Clinical audit
• Data mining
• Mixed methods, combining quantitative and qualitative methods
• Meta-epidemiology
• Investigative epidemiology
• Data visualisation
• Data coding.

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Research Vision

iSchool researchers address key challenges at the intersection of people, information, and technology. Our cross-disciplinary faculty draw their expertise from diverse fields including library science, information science, data science, computer science, sociology, physics, engineering, communications, literature, history, and education. Our strategic research vision drives the scope of our research and presents a distinct imprint for the substance and impact of our work.

iSchool faculty, staff, alumni, and students bring together wide-ranging areas of expertise to investigate all aspects of information creation, access, use, and preservation. These efforts are informed by our School’s strategic research vision, which reflects the value of information to society. J. Stephen Downie, Professor and Associate Dean for Research

Data science opens new windows to knowledge.

We envision a world where people marshal data for discovery and insight, while preserving social values..

Since at least the origins of recordkeeping in Sumer and Egypt over 5,000 years ago, human enterprises have relied upon data as a foundation for understanding, profiling, and analyzing the past and the present, as well as predicting future opportunities and conditions. Earlier technologies and practices of recordkeeping and analysis have repeatedly given way to advances in gathering, representing, maintaining, and massaging data/information that have radically lowered costs and increased the scale of data operations. As we move into another era of sea-changes in the "variety, volume, and velocity" of data practices, our researchers focus on understanding foundational properties of information like representation, aggregation, and modeling; curating, managing, and integrating huge structured and unstructured data collections; creating modern algorithms that improve retrieval and that probe data for novel, high-impact inferences; all the while grappling with how to assure appropriate access, ethical standards, privacy, integrity, and security of collections in use.

iSchool projects couple humanities scholars with massive new textual and historical resources; biology and health-care researchers with huge integrated collections of literature and scientific data; social scientists with global-scale, quickly evolving collections of real-time human behavior traces, and more. Our efforts are working toward a future of exciting new evidence-based discoveries that balance broad social values and the interests of many public and specialist stakeholders in the data universe.

Contributing research areas:  Argumentation ;  Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning ;  Computational Social Science, Social Computing ; Computing for Social Good ;  Data Analytics and Human Centered Data ;  Data Curation ; D ata Science ;  Digital Humanities ;  Diversity and Social Justice ;  Ethics and Values for Information ;  Foundations of Information ;  Health, Medical, and Bio-Informatics ;  Human Computer Interaction, User Experience, Computer Supported Cooperative Wor k;  Information Retrieval ;  Information Visualization ;  Informetrics (and Scientometrics) ;  Natural Language Processing, Text Mining, Text Analysis, Computational Linguistics ;  Network Science and Network Analysis ;  Privacy, Security, and Trust ;  Reproducibility ;  Science of Science ;  Social Informatics ;  Semantic Computing and Technologies ;  Social and Information Networks

Libraries shape what we know and who we are.

We envision libraries and information institutions that will shape the knowledge landscape of the future..

For millennia, human knowledge and heritage has been captured, organized, and accessed via the societal institutions of libraries, museums, archives, and such. The social practices, content, and technologies of these institutions have evolved greatly over time. But the fundamental societal value of collected collective information has remained central for informed, active, citizenry, and for broad participation in enterprises of arts, science, education, industry, commerce, government, and healthcare, to name just a few. Drawing on a wide array of sources and disciplines, our researchers study the histories, best practices, social integration, and foundational technologies of libraries and many other societal information centers. We aim to clarify how they work, how to maintain their enduring value, and how to continue wide and equitable access for all. iSchool scholars invent new state-of-the-art policies, practices, technologies, and infrastructures that will sustain the libraries and information institutions of the future.

Contributing research areas:   Archives and Preservation ;  Cultural Informatics and Heritage ;  Data Curation ;  Digital Libraries ;  Diversity and Social Justice ;  Education of Information Professionals ;  History of Information ;  Information Literacy ;  Information Practices and Behaviors ;  Information Retrieval ;  Libraries and Librarianship ;  Organization of Knowledge and Information

History informs our identity and guides our information future.

We envision global access to human cultural, scientific, and information heritage, learning from the past to inform tomorrow’s world..

The key role of history in human affairs goes far beyond Santayana's aphorism that those who fail to grasp history are condemned to repeat it. History informs our enduring identities as both persons and peoples. It informs who we are, and what we can become from the present. iSchool researchers investigate the history of libraries and of broad information practices through a wide set of lenses including physical architecture, organization and access technologies, political economies, social control, ethics, use policies, censorship, and social justice. New types and modalities of information, ranging from science and humanities databases and scholarly publishing regimes, to video/computer games, intangible artifacts, new forms of art, and personal archives, appear rapidly. 

Preserving, archiving, and maintaining access to the world's growing scientific, civic, and cultural heritage demands deep reflection on practices and infrastructures of information through history. Future access demands better infrastructures and practices to manage existing and emerging cultural/historical objects themselves. Our researchers' wide engagement with information history itself, with historical materials, and with the culture of the present—tomorrow's history—is assuring that as a society we will be able to learn from the past to comprehend our current realities, craft our social and personal identities, and foster a better future.

Contributing research areas:   Archives and Preservation ;  Cultural Informatics and Heritage ;  Data Curation ;  Design and Evaluation of Information Systems and Services ;  Foundations of Information ;  History of Information ;  Information Retrieval ; Reproducibility ;  Organization of Knowledge and Information ;  Information Practices and Behaviors

Systems serve people.

We envision a world where information systems make sense and serve people..

As information penetrates more broadly and deeply into the fabric of human endeavor, we find ourselves too often overcome with the scale, complexity, and fragility of modern information services and systems. From nonsensical and even dangerous user interfaces, to invisible decision logics and data sources, many of our information environments are constraining us rather than serving us. Some of these failings have roots in extreme technical complexity and lack of designers' insight and experience. Some of them are rooted in the struggles of competing social and political interests of powerful actors, organizations, and institutions. iSchool researchers examine the spectrum of sociotechnical forces and structures to understand and improve information access and utility.

Contributing research areas: Computational Social Science, Social Computing ; Computing for Social Good ;   Data Analytics ; Data Science ;  Design and Evaluation of Information Systems and Services ;  Ethics and Values for Information ;  FATE (fairness, accountability, transparency, ethics) ;  Foundations of Information ;  Information Policy ;  Information Retrieval ;  Informetrics (and Scientometrics) ;  Organization of Knowledge and Information ; Knowledge representation, Ontologies ;  Privacy, Security, and Trust ;  Social Informatics

Information is a vital human resource.

We envision a world in which information is a fundamental human resource like food, energy, and transportation, with equitable access for all..

All modern human activities and services depend critically on information. A dynamic civil society depends on a knowledgeable, informed public as well as open access to decisions, policies, laws, culture, and public records. Fundamental scientific advances require deep reasoning about the nature of information in the social, biological, and physical worlds. The heart of the global banking and energy systems is information flow. Rapidly scaling efficiencies of e-commerce rely upon many forms of information, from customer interactions to package tracking. In spheres like these and many more, our researchers strive to understand how to define, apply, and appropriately access information.

Contributing research areas:   Community Informatics ; Computational Social Science, Social Computing ; Computing for Social Good ;  Diversity and Social Justice ;  Education of Information Professionals ;  FATE (fairness, accountability, transparency, ethics) ;  Foundations of Information ;  History of Information ;  Information Access ;  Information Policy ;  Privacy, Security, and Trust ;  Social Informatics ;  Social Media

Information literacy enables participation in the knowledge society.

We envision empowered individuals creating and using information responsibly..

Information often seems simple—most of us think we know how to hold a conversation, view a picture, watch a movie or TV show, or listen to music we like. We often forget that the technologies of talk, photography, film/TV, and music have changed completely even over the past few years. We forget that linguistic, visual, and musical vocabularies have evolved too; we've had to learn to comprehend new structures like quick-cut movies, photoshopped pictures, electronic dance music (EDM) or online print, and learn when to drop the old.

We forget that the sources, spread, reach, and content of this information—who can speak with, listen to, photograph, or share what content with whom, how, and where, both technologically and in terms of social, political and cultural norms—have also transformed over a very short time. Information literacy—the ability to locate, evaluate, use, and communicate information—is a learned skill that rests on a constantly evolving, culturally-specific, social, technical, economic, political, and content base, and it's not simple. Responsible, engaged participation in the modern world, where many more participants produce, find, evaluate, and use information than ever before, requires high information literacy. iSchool researchers are building new ways of understanding and fostering information literacy. We investigate the barriers to information literacy in all these dimensions, and work to develop the means to overcome them. iSchool research on improving information literacy integrates many disciplines, and aims to create a society in which all people have the information skills to participate openly, creatively, effectively, and responsibly.

Contributing research areas:   Computational Social Science, Social Computing ; Computing for Social Good ;  Community Informatics ;  Cultural Informatics and Heritage ;  Digital Humanities ;  Digital Libraries ;  Diversity and Social Justice ;  Education of Information Professionals ;  History of Information ;  Information Literacy ;  Information Practices and Behaviors ;  Knowledge representation, Ontologies ;  Youth Literature, Culture, and Services

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Research and innovation menu, research and innovation, mission, vision & values.

The mission of the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation is to advance world-class research, scholarship, and innovation across the entire university. We provide the university community with comprehensive, solution-oriented services and infrastructure to support research, dissemination, and translation of discoveries to maximize impact. By leading the growth of our public university’s research enterprise and securing new resources for our scholars, we contribute to new knowledge, discovery, and innovation in Oregon, nationally, and globally.

We envision a supportive environment for all University of Oregon scholars that enables transformative discoveries and innovation, produces new knowledge, and supports creative activities to benefit Oregon, the nation, and the world.

• Collaboration: Our office advances research and innovation by establishing collaborative relationships at all scales—within our division, throughout the university, and with external partners in higher education, government, industry, and non-profit organizations. We champion disciplinary and interdisciplinary collaboration.
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: We proactively support the creation of a diverse, equitable, and inclusive research community. We act upon the deep belief that diverse, equitable, and inclusive research environments are fair and just, and are necessary to accelerate discovery and innovation.
• Innovation and Impact: Our efforts and investments in innovative work at the university advance intellectual and societal impact of fundamental and applied research. We prioritize innovation in research, including the translation of discoveries, public engagement, and dissemination of knowledge.
• Openness and Transparency: We actively seek input from the research community, make reasoned decisions that are fair and principled, and share information in a transparent manner.
• Resilience: We respond to new information and changing conditions in ways that enable rapid learning and flexibility while maintaining continuity and adaptability for our research enterprise.  We approach current opportunities and challenges with an eye towards the long-term resilience.
• Service: We provide high-caliber, solution-oriented service to our faculty, students, and staff to advance their research and scholarship goals while ensuring that activities comply with applicable laws, regulations, and university policies.

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Research for Healthy Living

Not long ago, age-related macular degeneration (AMD) was an untreatable disease — the leading cause of new cases of blindness in people over age 65. The disorder made it difficult, if not impossible, to read, recognize faces, drive a car, or perform many other simple tasks. 

Thanks to NIH research, we know a lot about the underlying causes of vision loss. For example, we know that AMD is caused by the formation of abnormal, leaky blood vessels in the eye. Eye injections of anti-vascular endothelial growth-factor drugs, such as ranibizumab and bevacizumab, inhibit the growth and leakage of fluid from these abnormal blood vessels and, in some cases, even reverse vision loss.

In addition to AMD, cataracts, glaucoma, and inherited eye disorders cause either blindness or low-vision in millions of Americans. NIH research is providing hope. For example, a recent study in mice showed that cells within an injured eye can be coaxed into regenerating neurons that appeared to integrate themselves into the eye’s nerve circuitry. NIH scientists are also developing several technologies to help people with low vision or blindness navigate their surroundings more safely and confidently. These include a GPS-guided cane, a robotic glove, and a smartphone app for safely navigating crosswalks. 

Did you know?

On average, every $10 million increase in NIH funding generates 3 additional private-sector patents.

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This page last reviewed on November 16, 2023

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What Is a Vision Board and Why Make One?

Need a more creative way to think through your goals vision boards may help..

Posted March 1, 2021 | Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

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What Is a Vision Board?

A vision board is usually a collage of images that represent goals and dreams . It can include cut-out pictures from magazines and words that help inspire you to manifest your dreams and get where you want to go (here is a complete guide on how to manifest something).

Although vision boarding is a commonly used tool, there is not a lot of research on its effectiveness. Initial research suggests it can help us more easily reach our goals. This may be due to how vision boards help us gain self-awareness and self-reflect on what is important to us.

​Vision boards may also help us imagine what a positive future could look like for us. Imagining a positive future is a helpful way to increase positive emotions and optimism . And positive emotions often create opportunities and increase the chances of success.

Even though this research doesn't directly assess the benefits of making a vision board, it suggests that many of the components of vision boarding have potential benefits for our well-being and success. It's just key to remember that vision boards are not magic. Rather, they can help you better understand what it is you'd like to manifest.

Here are some tips to help you make a vision board.

How to Make a Vision Board

Start by exploring your values. If your goals are not aligned with your personal values, achieving these goals won't provide the sense of satisfaction and well-being that you're seeking. Ask yourself, what really matters to you? What gives you meaning? Who do you want to be? Who do you want to help? And how do you want to spend your time? When making a vision board and thinking through your goals, keep these values-focused questions in mind.

Think about what motivates you. If you pursue goals that you find motivating, you'll have an easier time reaching them. So ask yourself, what do you want and why do you want it? Does it have anything to do with your childhood or past experiences? Does it have to do with your personality ?

Try to better understand why the goals you've set are so important to you. Or revise them if you discover they are not as important as you once thought.

Set priorities. Sometimes vision boards can end up being a collection of all the goals we aspire to—being rich, beautiful, and successful. If we really want to achieve these goals, we need to be more realistic with them. What can we reasonably accomplish in a year or five years? You can visualize your priorities by focusing a vision board on your most important life goals or by placing them above, in the center, or over a greater majority of the board.

Potential Problems With Vision Boards

Vision boarding is somewhat controversial in the scientific community. ​Because vision boards are often associated with the "law of attraction ," which doesn't have scientific support behind it, many assume vision boards are not a useful tool.

It's true that we don't fully understand the precise benefits of vision boards, but the truth is we don't understand the precise benefits of many tools that are used in coaching , counseling, and psychotherapy . That's because testing each one of these tools without the others is quite burdensome research. Anyway, given we know that the very act of setting goals is better than not setting goals, vision boards are indeed likely to be a useful tool, at least for some people.

Vision Board Ideas

Here are some types of goals that you may want to include in a vision board.

• Social Goals

You can include all of these or make a vision board for each goal, focusing on the details of each. It's up to you. Now it's time to get creative.

Created with content from The Berkeley Well-Being Institute .

Quoidbach, J., Mikolajczak, M., & Gross, J. J. (2015). Positive interventions: An emotion regulation perspective. Psychological bulletin, 141(3), 655.

Burton, L., & Lent, J. (2016). The use of vision boards as a therapeutic intervention. Journal of Creativity in Mental Health, 11(1), 52-65.

Lyubomirsky, S., King, L., & Diener, E. (2005). The benefits of frequent positive affect: Does happiness lead to success?. Psychological bulletin, 131(6), 803.

Tchiki Davis, Ph.D. , is a consultant, writer, and expert on well-being technology.

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Vision and Ocular Diseases  Vision Research at PCOM

Vision is a complex phenomenon involving transmittance of detailed information about the world around us to the retina of the eye and integration centers in the brain. A translucent lens is required for light to reach the retina with fidelity.

What is Vision Research?

Vision research focuses on understanding the sophisticated process of visual perception and exploring ways to prevent and treat vision-related disorders. Researchers explore various aspects of vision, including the structure and function of the eye, neural processing of visual information, and the psychological and cognitive aspects of vision. Many research efforts investigate eye diseases and explore approaches for early detection, treatment and vision restoration. Ultimately, vision research aims to preserve and enhance the remarkable gift of sight, improving the quality of life for people around the world.

Vision Research at PCOM

PCOM faculty and staff focus most of their vision research efforts on diseases that affect vision and cell processes related to the eye. Millions of people are visually impaired due to cataracts and retinal degeneration. PCOM students and faculty are looking into novel methods to preventing vision loss by deciphering mechanisms leading to dysfunction and developing approaches to maintaining the clarity of the lens and function of the retina.

Myo/Nog cells have attracted attention in regenerative medicine and tissue engineering due to their potential for repairing damaged skeletal muscle and promoting bone formation. Studies have shown that these cells can be isolated from muscle muscle tissue and expanded in culture, after which they can be induced back into the human body to restore healing properties. This versatility makes them promising candidates for therapeutic applications, such as treating degenerative vision diseases as well as muscle injuries and bone defects.

What are Myo/Nog Cells?

Myo/Nog cells, also known as MyoD-negative/Noggin-positive cells, are a specific type of stem cells that have been identified in skeletal muscle tissue. They are critical for normal development of the human brain, eyes, heart and muscles. Furthermore, in adults, Myo/Nog cells assist in wound healing and protect neurons. In other tissues—like the lens of the eye—they contribute to a vision-impairing disease called posterior capsule opacification (PCO), which may develop after cataract surgery.

These cells are characterized by their ability to differentiate into various cell types, including muscle cells (myocytes) and bone cells (osteoblasts). The name "Myo/Nog" comes from the combination of two factors expressed by these cells: MyoD, a muscle-specific transcription factor, and Noggin, a secreted protein that plays a role in skeletal development.

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Mindy George-Weinstein, PhD

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Jacquelyn Gerhart, MS

First-year medical student Mara Crispin (DO '25) is first author of a research article that concludes Myo/Nog cells differentiate into myofibroblasts that contract and produce retinal folds and detachment. If not repaired immediately, the damaged vision cells lead to blindness.

Christopher Setura (DO '24) began vision research with Drs. George-Weinstein and Bravo-Nuevo while pursuing his biological sciences degree at Drexel University. Now a med student at PCOM, he studies the benefits of introducing exogenous Myo/Nog cells to the eyes of mice that have retinopathy of prematurity, which is the most common cause of blindness in human children.

In her time as a student at PCOM, Lindsay Gugerty, DO, explored the emerging roles of Myo/Nog cells in wound healing. Under the guidance of PCOM research staff, she explored the cells' ability to ingest or phagocytose foreign material and dead cells in the skin and eyes. This could lead to methods for preventing chronic inflammation and autoimmune disease.

After discovering Myo/Nog cells more than 30 years ago, Mindy George-Weinstein, PhD, and Jacquelyn Gerhart, MS, continue to research these important vision cells. In a published paper, their research team found eliminating Myo/Nog cells in lenses undergoing cataract surgery significantly reduced the severity of a vision-impairing disease in animal models.

Research at PCOM

PCOM aims to develop innovative approaches to promoting health through basic, translational, clinical, behavioral, education and community research projects.

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Career Tips , Choosing a Job

What is Vision and Why is Having a Vision Important?

Updated: January 11, 2024

Published: July 23, 2021

Most of life is filled with uncertainty. This is especially true of the future. But if you can hold onto a vision of what’s yet to come, you can boost your chances at achieving your dreams and being successful. What is vision exactly? How does it help, and what does it mean to have a vision?

We’ll cover what it means to have a personal vision, as well as what it means for a business to have a clear vision.

What is Vision?

According to Merriam-Webster , vision is defined as, “the act of power of imagination.”  When you apply vision to the future, you can create a mental picture that can be used to direct your actions. Vision serves as a guide and can be used to provide a sense of purpose.

Why is Vision Important?

For both people and businesses, having a vision proves to be extremely important. Given the trials and tribulations that may come your way, when you have a clear vision of what you want to happen, you can make better decisions.

Here’s a look at a few reasons why having a vision is so vital to success and joy:

Overcome roadblocks and hurdles

Challenges are inevitable. When you run into a wall or a hurdle, you need to know which way to go. Vision provides you with something to look forward to and always work towards. It provides you with a reason to keep going, even when the times get tough.

Substantiate your goals

Having a vision places a purpose upon your goal-setting activities. Without an end goal or destination in mind, then you won’t have a clear or defined path. Vision provides this.

To achieve your vision or goal, you can start by setting small, attainable goals as stepping stones. Each relatively little bit of success will help to continue propelling you forward on your bigger journey.

Sets expectations

Setting goals comes along with defining measurements of success. If you set a goal, how do you know when you’ve reached it if you don’t have a way to define success? An overall life vision helps to set expectations accordingly.

Having a vision ensures that your life or business goals can remain focused. When you are faced with a decision or distraction, you can ask yourself if it will help or hurt you in attaining your vision. This can offer you the means to move forward with intention and alignment.

Delivers meaning and purpose

A vision is a way to answer your own “why” of life. It gives you the reason for your actions, choices, hopes, and desires. This fills your daily activities with meaning and purpose.

What is a Vision Statement?

Anyone can create their own vision statement. People can develop a personal vision statement, and so can a business.

When it comes to businesses and entities, it’s common for them to write and share a vision statement. A vision statement is a written expression of the purpose and meaning behind a business that’s intended for stakeholders, including employees and even customers.

Strong vision statements are written in the present tense, express an outcome that’s achievable, and evokes emotion.

Businesses: How to Write a Vision Statement

For entrepreneurs and business owners, knowing how to write a vision statement is a useful skill to hone.

Let’s take a look at what components you need to write a strong vision statement. This can be applied for personal vision statements, as well.

Project into the future

While a vision statement should be written in present tense, it needs to be forward-looking because that’s what vision is. In terms of a business’ vision statement, it’s recommended to look five or ten years into the future to understand what you hope to achieve by then.

You can ask questions like what you think the world will look like and/or the market you’re operating in.

Determine position

To know where you want to go, you should first assess where you are and the resources available. This can be done with an OAS statement, which is the company’s objective, advantage, and scope.

Outline success

Clearly define what success looks like and how it will be measured for your organization (or for yourself).

Conduct research

For a business’ value statement, it’s a good idea to look at your competition, or the companies which you hope to emulate. It can provide inspiration or a better understanding of how you can get to where you want to be.

Create a measurable goal

Create measurable goals that are in line with your vision and communicate them to internal and external stakeholders.

Learn More About Business

If the idea of vision statements and business goals excite you, then a career in business might be a part of your personal vision!

At the University of the People, our degrees (associate’s, bachelor’s, and master’s) in Business Administration prepare you to enter the world of business with all the skills you need to thrive.

What’s more is that these classes take place online, so you can earn your degree on your own schedule, no matter where you are. All you need is an internet connection and a device to get connected.

The Business Administration program, just like our other degree offerings (Health Science, Education, and Computer Science) are tuition-free . This makes them an affordable and accessible way to earn your higher education.

The Bottom Line

Whether you are running a business or an individual looking to accomplish their personal goals in life, having a vision is important.

The approach and answer to the question of, “What is a vision?” could be different from one person to the next. However, it will always entail a look into the future with a mental image of what’s to come. Clearly defining your vision and referring back to it when you make your decisions in life will help you to achieve your goals.

A vision can consist of personal goals, physical health, career goals, educational goals, and any other aspects of life. No matter what aspect you choose to focus on, you can define and attain your vision with effort, determination, and focus!

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To fund research devoted to vision science to better understand the cause of vision loss. To conduct research to further understand vision loss and develop treatments to address these conditions. To educate health care professionals and the public about vision-threatening eye diseases and provide information on potential preventative measures gained through research.

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The study provides me with a possible path to vision improvement.  The FVR staff has been very caring and sensitive to my needs - a most positive experience.

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Slowly losing my vision to macular degeneration has been very difficult and at times depressing.  Participating in this study has been such a positive experience for me. One in which I hope will lead to a potential new treatment for macular degeneration. 

Restoring sight is possible now with optogenetics

People suffering from macular degeneration, along with other diseases that impair sight, may soon benefit from gene therapy

As a child, Max Hodak learned to develop film in a darkroom with his late grandfather who was almost blind.

Hodak’s grandfather had retinitis pigmentosa, a congenital disease that affects one out of every 5,000 people — more than 2 million worldwide. Most people with the condition are born with their sight intact. Over time they lose peripheral vision first, then central vision, and finally, their sight, sometimes as early as middle age.

“He clearly had this career and was a photographer, and I saw that,” Hodak said of his grandfather, who became an aerospace engineer and briefly worked on heat shields for spacecraft. “But most of my memories as a kid was that he was pretty profoundly blind.”

Possible solutions, though, are within reach. Science, a start-up company in Alameda, Calif., has designed a visual prosthesis called the Science Eye which could restore vision, albeit in a limited form, in people with retinitis pigmentosa. Hodak, its CEO, co-founded the startup after a stint at Elon Musk’s company Neuralink. Other companies such as Paris-based biotechnology company GenSight Biologics and Bionic Sight in New York are also experimenting with methods to restore sight.

All are basing their work on a research tool in neuroscience called optogenetics, a form of gene therapy that delivers proteins called opsins via injection into the eye to boost the light sensitivity of cells in the retina, the layer of tissue at the rear of the eyeball.

Therapeutic optogenetic therapy for vision restoration certainly has promise, according to Anand Swaroop, a senior investigator at the National Eye Institute in Bethesda, Md., who has worked on inherited retinal degeneration for close to four decades. But there’s still room for improvement.

“At least at this stage, it seems to be very good in cases where someone is completely blind,” Swaroop said. “You should be able to find your way around. You’re not going to bump into things, which is great. But you’re not going to be distinguishing many different features.”

How optogenetics work

In normal vision, light enters the eye through the lens and forms an image on the retina. The retina itself is composed of several different types of cells, mainly photoreceptors. Photoreceptors are light-sensing cells shaped like rods and cones that contain opsins. Normally, photoreceptors convert light into electrical signals that travel to the retina’s ganglion cells, which in turn transmit those electrical signals via the optic nerve into the brain. That’s how you’re reading the words on this page right now.

In retinitis pigmentosa, the rods and cones in the photoreceptors break down and ultimately die. First the peripheral vision goes, and people develop tunnel vision: They have to turn their whole head just to view the world around them. Many people with tunnel vision require a cane to assist in navigating the world (and to avoid bumping into things, like furniture.) Blindness follows not long after. The breakdown of the photoreceptors, however, doesn’t diminish the brain’s ability to process electrical signals — and, critically, the ganglion cells remain intact.

Optogenetics seeks to circumvent the usual choreography by delivering opsin proteins directly to the ganglion cells, meaning they can be stimulated by light in order to send signals to the brain.

The Science Eye contains two elements. The first is an implant composed of a wireless power coil and an ultrathin, flexible micro-LED array that’s applied directly over the retina — surgery that’s more extensive compared to other eye procedures like repairing cataracts. According to Hodak, the array — prototypes of which are being tested in rabbits — provides eight times the resolution of an iPhone screen.

The second element is a pair of frameless glasses, similar in size and shape to regular prescription glasses, that contain miniature infrared cameras and inductive power coils.

Put it all together and the process looks like this:

Inject opsins into the ganglion cells of the eye.

Install the implant.

The glasses activate the modified ganglion cells by wirelessly communicating information from the visual world; in turn, the new light-sensitive ganglion cells transmit that information through the optic nerve to the brain.

The eye isn’t receiving an image anymore, but rather digital information. And the results?

“You should be able to walk across town to buy a sandwich without being hit by a car,” Hodak said.

More research into retinitis pigmentosa

Other companies are already helping to bring back vision in people with retinitis pigmentosa.

GenSight Biologics uses an optogenetics-plus-glasses approach to amplify light that genetically edited ganglion cells can decode. According to clinical trial results published in 2021 in the journal Nature Medicine, GenSight’s method was able to help in locating objects on a table. That patient, a 58-year-old man, was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa at age 18.

Innovations

Bionic Sight has firsthand experience with patients beginning to make distinctions between features. Its method involves a gene-therapy vector that transfers an opsin called Chronos via injection into the eyes of their patients to boost the light sensitivity of intact ganglion cells. For those with tunnel vision, the injection of the opsin seems to be enough.

For patients with more impaired vision, Bionic Sight pairs the optogenetic therapy with a pair of goggles containing a camera and a neurocoding device: The camera takes in images and converts them to code, which is then sent out as light pulses to activate the opsin in the genetically modified ganglion cells. So far Bionic Sight has treated 13 people, ranging from the very blind to patients with tunnel vision.

“It’s really significantly helping,” said Sheila Nirenberg, founder of Bionic Sight as well as a professor of computational neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medical College.

Consider the large letter “E” on the eye chart you might examine during a visit to the doctor’s office. The visual acuity of a person who is nearly blind is 20/200: What someone with 20/20 vision is able to see at 200 feet away is only visible at 20 feet away to someone who is nearly blind.

Many of her patients with retinitis pigmentosa, Nirenberg said, can’t see a letter like the big “E” from just two feet away. But one patient whose visual acuity was 20/150 — he had to stand 20 feet away from the chart in order to see the letters, whereas a normally-sighted person could stand 150 feet away and see the same letters — is now down to 20/40. Another patient was unable to distinguish the suits on playing cards. After receiving the opsin, the patient was not only able to tell the difference between clubs and diamonds, for instance, but he was also able to notice the differences in color.

Another challenge had him trying to spot differences between plastic fruits arranged in front of him. He was able to spot the stem of the apple to tell it apart from oranges and peaches. Finally, he was asked to walk a maze with black squares on the bottom — and made it through successfully.

“I can’t explain to you how thrilling it is,” Nirenberg said. “It’s very hopeful.”

One form of gene therapy for treating blindness has been available for over five years. Luxturna, a prescription approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2017, is for children and adults with a rare genetic mutation that impacts the retinal pigment epithelium, the membrane at the back of the retina on which the photoreceptors sit. The prescription adds in a functional version of the gene to create an epithelium more favorable to the photoreceptors.

“It might slow the progression of the disease,” Hodak said. “But it does not regenerate any loss.”

That, ultimately, is the goal of Science Eye. Clinical trials should begin, Hodak said, sometime in the next 18 months. The company is also looking at ways to use Science Eye to help people with dry age-related macular degeneration, which unfolds slightly differently compared with retinitis pigmentosa: Patients lose central, high-resolution vision first, and then their peripheral vision.

There are milestones to cross for every company using optogenetics to help people improve their eyesight. More patients enrolled in clinical trials should help refine both opsin delivery and the ability to improve light sensitivity in retinal cells. But Hodak predicts that over the next five years, there will be products on the market for people like his grandfather.

“You always have to be really careful with what you say to patients because they’re holding on for any piece of hope,” Hodak said. “But there’s a lot of things on the horizon that are converging. It’s not at a point where any one thing will fail and derail the whole field. Real progress is coming.”

About this story

Bionic Eye illustrations by Washington Post; Science. Editing by Bronwen Latimer. Copy editing by Paola Ruano. Design and development by Audrey Valbuena. Design editing by Betty Chavarria. Photo editing by Haley Hamblin. Project development by Evan Bretos and Hope Corrigan. Project editing by Marian Chia-Ming Liu.

‘To the Future’: Saudi Arabia Spends Big to Become an A.I. Superpower

The oil-rich kingdom is plowing money into glitzy events, computing power and artificial intelligence research, putting it in the middle of an escalating U.S.-China struggle for technological influence.

More than 200,000 people converged on the Leap tech conference in the desert outside Riyadh in March. Credit... Iman Al-Dabbagh for The New York Times

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By Adam Satariano and Paul Mozur

Adam Satariano reported from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and Paul Mozur from Taipei, Taiwan.

• Published April 25, 2024 Updated April 26, 2024

On a Monday morning last month, tech executives, engineers and sales representatives from Amazon, Google, TikTok and other companies endured a three-hour traffic jam as their cars crawled toward a mammoth conference at an event space in the desert, 50 miles outside Riyadh.

The lure: billions of dollars in Saudi money as the kingdom seeks to build a tech industry to complement its oil dominance.

To bypass the congestion, frustrated eventgoers drove onto the highway shoulder, kicking up plumes of desert sand as they sped past those following traffic rules. A lucky few took advantage of a special freeway exit dedicated to “V.V.I.P.s” — very, very important people.

“To the Future,” a sign read on the approach to the event, called Leap.

More than 200,000 people converged at the conference, including Adam Selipsky, chief executive of Amazon’s cloud computing division, who announced a $5.3 billion investment in Saudi Arabia for data centers and artificial intelligence technology. Arvind Krishna, the chief executive of IBM, spoke of what a government minister called a “lifetime friendship” with the kingdom. Executives from Huawei and dozens of other firms made speeches. More than $10 billion in deals were done there, according to Saudi Arabia’s state press agency.

“This is a great country,” Shou Chew, TikTok’s chief executive, said during the conference, heralding the video app’s growth in the kingdom. “We expect to invest even more.”

• Shou Chew, TikTok’s chief executive, promoted the video app’s growth in Saudi Arabia during the Leap conference. Iman Al-Dabbagh for The New York Times
• One of the booths at the Leap conference, which was attended by executives from Google, Amazon, TikTok and others. Iman Al-Dabbagh for The New York Times
• A robotic dog walking through the Leap conference. Iman Al-Dabbagh for The New York Times

Everybody in tech seems to want to make friends with Saudi Arabia right now as the kingdom has trained its sights on becoming a dominant player in A.I. — and is pumping in eye-popping sums to do so.

Saudi Arabia created a $100 billion fund this year to invest in A.I. and other technology. It is in talks with Andreessen Horowitz, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm, and other investors to put an additional $40 billion into A.I. companies. In March, the government said it would invest $1 billion in a Silicon Valley-inspired start-up accelerator to lure A.I. entrepreneurs to the kingdom. The initiatives easily dwarf those of most major nation-state investments, like Britain’s $100 million pledge for the Alan Turing Institute.

The spending blitz stems from a generational effort outlined in 2016 by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and known as “Vision 2030.” Saudi Arabia is racing to diversify its oil-rich economy in areas like tech, tourism, culture and sports — investing a reported $200 million a year for the soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo and planning a 100-mile-long mirrored skyscraper in the desert.

For the tech industry, Saudi Arabia has long been a funding spigot. But the kingdom is now redirecting its oil wealth into building a domestic tech industry, requiring international firms to establish roots there if they want its money.

If Prince Mohammed succeeds, he will place Saudi Arabia in the middle of an escalating global competition among China, the United States and other countries like France that have made breakthroughs in generative A.I. Combined with A.I. efforts by its neighbor, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia’s plan has the potential to create a new power center in the global tech industry.

“I hereby invite all dreamers, innovators, investors and thinkers to join us, here in the kingdom, to achieve our ambitions together,” Prince Mohammed remarked in a 2020 speech about A.I.

His ambitions are geopolitically delicate as China and the United States seek to carve out spheres of influence over A.I. to shape the future of critical technologies.

In Washington, many worry that the kingdom’s goals and authoritarian leanings could work against U.S. interests — for instance, if Saudi Arabia ends up providing computing power to Chinese researchers and companies. This month, the White House brokered a deal for Microsoft to invest in G42, an A.I. company in the Emirates, which was intended partly to diminish China’s influence.

For China, the Persian Gulf region offers a big market, access to deep-pocketed investors and a chance to wield influence in countries traditionally allied with the United States. China’s form of A.I.-powered surveillance has already been embedded into policing in the region .

Some industry leaders have begun to arrive. Jürgen Schmidhuber, an A.I. pioneer who now heads an A.I. program at Saudi Arabia’s premier research university, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, recalled the kingdom’s roots centuries ago as a center for science and mathematics.

“It would be lovely to contribute to a new world and resurrect this golden age,” he said. “Yes, it will cost money, but there’s a lot of money in this country.”

The willingness to spend was front and center last month at a gala in Riyadh hosted by the Saudi government, which coincided with the Leap conference. Hollywood klieg lights blazed in the sky above the city as guests arrived in chauffeured Maseratis, Mercedes-Benzes and Porsches. Inside a 300,000-square-foot parking garage that had been converted two years ago into one of the world’s largest start-up spaces, attendees mingled, debated opening offices in Riyadh and sipped pomegranate juice and cardamom-flavored coffee.

“There’s something happening here,” said Hilmar Veigar Petursson, the chief executive of CCP Games, the Icelandic company behind the popular game Eve Online, who was at the gala. “I got a very similar sense when I came back from China in 2005.”

A Sci-Fi Script

Prince Mohammed’s Vision 2030 project, unveiled eight years ago, seems taken from a science-fiction script.

Under the plan, new futuristic cities will be built in the desert along the Red Sea, oriented around tech and digital services. And the kingdom, which has piled billions into tech start-ups like Uber and investment vehicles such as SoftBank’s Vision Fund, would spend more.

That drew Silicon Valley’s attention. When Prince Mohammed visited California in 2018, Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founder, escorted him through a tree-lined path at the company’s campus. Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, showed him the company’s products. The prince also traveled to Seattle, where he met with Bill Gates of Microsoft; Satya Nadella, the company’s chief executive; and Jeff Bezos of Amazon.

It was a key moment for Saudi Arabia’s tech ambitions as Prince Mohammed presented himself as a youthful, digitally savvy reformer. But enthusiasm dimmed a few months later when Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and critic of the crown prince, was killed at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Prince Mohammed denied involvement, but the C.I.A. concluded that he had approved the killing .

For a brief period, it was seen as untoward to associate with Saudi Arabia. Business executives canceled visits to the kingdom. But the lure of its money was ultimately too strong.

A.I. development depends on two key things that Saudi Arabia has in abundance: money and energy. The kingdom is pouring oil profits into buying semiconductors, building supercomputers, attracting talent and constructing data centers powered by its plentiful electricity. The bet is that Saudi Arabia will eventually export A.I. computing muscle.

Majid Ali AlShehry, the general manager of studies for the Saudi Data and A.I. Authority, a government agency overseeing A.I. initiatives, said 70 percent of the 96 strategic goals outlined in Vision 2030 involved using data and A.I.

“We see A.I. as one of the main enablers of all sectors,” he said in an interview at the agency’s office in Riyadh, where employees nearby worked on an Arabic chatbot called Allam.

Those goals have permeated the kingdom. Posters for Vision 2030 are visible throughout Riyadh. Young Saudis describe the crown prince as running the kingdom as if it were a start-up. Many tech leaders have parroted the sentiment.

“Saudi has a founder,” Ben Horowitz, a founder of Andreessen Horowitz, said last year at a conference in Miami. “You don’t call him a founder. You call him his royal highness.”

Some question whether Saudi Arabia can become a global tech hub. The kingdom has faced scrutiny for its human rights record, intolerance to homosexuality and brutal heat. But for those in the tech world who descended on Riyadh last month, the concerns seemed secondary to the dizzying amount of deal-making underway.

“They are just pouring money into A.I.,” said Peter Lillian, an engineer at Groq, a U.S. maker of semiconductors that power A.I. systems. Groq is working with Neom, a futuristic city that Saudi Arabia is building in the desert, and Aramco, the state oil giant. “We’re doing so many deals,” he said.

Torn Between Superpowers

Situated along the Red Sea’s turquoise waters, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology has become a site of the U.S.-Chinese technological showdown.

The university, known as KAUST, is central to Saudi Arabia’s plans to vault to A.I. leadership. Modeled on universities like Caltech, KAUST has brought in foreign A.I. leaders and provided computing resources to build an epicenter for A.I. research.

To achieve that aim, KAUST has often turned to China to recruit students and professors and to strike research partnerships , alarming American officials. They fear students and professors from Chinese military-linked universities will use KAUST to sidestep U.S. sanctions and boost China in the race for A.I. supremacy , analysts and U.S. officials said.

Of particular concern is the university’s construction of one of the region’s fastest supercomputers, which needs thousands of microchips made by Nvidia, the biggest maker of precious chips that power A.I. systems. The university’s chip order, with an estimated value of more than $100 million, is being held up by a review from the U.S. government, which must provide an export license before the sale can go through.

Both China and the United States want to keep Prince Mohammed close. A.I. ambitions add a new layer of geopolitical significance to a kingdom already key to Middle East policy and global energy supplies. A 2016 visit to Saudi Arabia by Xi Jinping, China’s leader, paved the way for new tech cooperation. Accustomed to top-down industrial policy, Chinese companies have expanded rapidly in the kingdom, forming partnerships with major state-owned companies. The United States has pushed Saudi Arabia to pick a side, but Prince Mohammed seems content to benefit from both nations.

Mr. Schmidhuber, the researcher leading KAUST’s A.I. efforts, has seen the jostling up close. Considered a pioneer of modern A.I. — students in a lab he led included a founder of DeepMind, an innovative A.I. company now owned by Google — he was lured to the desert in 2021.

He was reluctant to move at first, he said, but university officials, via a headhunter, “tried to make it more attractive and even more attractive and even more attractive for me.”

Now Mr. Schmidhuber is awaiting the completion of the supercomputer, Shaheen 3, which is a chance to attract more top talent to the Persian Gulf and to give researchers access to computing power often reserved for major companies.

“No other university is going to have a similar thing,” he said.

Some in Washington fear the supercomputer may provide researchers from Chinese universities access to cutting-edge computing resources they would not have in China. More than a dozen students and staff members at KAUST are from military-linked Chinese universities known as the Seven Sons of National Defense, according to a review by The New York Times. During the Trump administration, the United States blocked entry to students from those universities over concerns they could take sensitive technologies back to China’s military.

“The United States should quickly move to deny export licenses to any entity if the end user is likely to be a P.R.C. actor affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army,” Representative Mike Gallagher, a Republican from Wisconsin, said in a statement.

A senior White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that the default U.S. policy was to share technology with Saudi Arabia, a critical ally in the gulf, but that there were national security concerns and risks with A.I.

The Commerce Department declined to comment. In a statement, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, “We hope that relevant countries will work with China to resist coercion, jointly safeguard a fair and open international economic and trade order, and safeguard their own long-term interests.”

A KAUST spokeswoman said, “We will strictly comply with all U.S. export license terms and conditions for the full life cycle of Shaheen 3.”

Mr. Schmidhuber said the Saudi government was ultimately aligned with the United States. Just as U.S. technology helped create Saudi Arabia’s oil industry, it will play a critical role in A.I. development.

“Nobody wants to jeopardize that,” he said.

The Gold Rush

Aladin Ben, a German Tunisian A.I. entrepreneur, was in Bali last year when he received an email from a Saudi agency working on A.I. issues. The agency knew his software start-up, Memorality, which designs tools to make it easier for businesses to incorporate A.I., and wanted to work together.

Since then, Mr. Ben, 31, has traveled to Saudi Arabia five times. He is now negotiating with the kingdom on an investment and other partnerships. But his company may need to incorporate in Saudi Arabia to get the full benefit of the government’s offer, which includes buying hundreds of annual subscriptions to his software in a contract worth roughly $800,000 a month.

“If you want a serious deal, you need to be here,” Mr. Ben said in an interview in Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia was once viewed as a source of few-strings-attached cash. Now it has added conditions to its deals, requiring many companies to establish roots in the kingdom to partake in the financial windfall.

That was evident at GAIA, an A.I. start-up accelerator, for which Saudi officials announced $1 billion in funding last month.

Each start-up in the program receives a grant worth about $40,000 in exchange for spending at least three months in Riyadh, along with a potential $100,000 investment. Entrepreneurs are required to register their company in the kingdom and spend 50 percent of their investment in Saudi Arabia. They also receive access to computing power purchased from Amazon and Google free of charge.

About 50 start-ups — including from Taiwan, South Korea, Sweden, Poland and the United States — have gone through GAIA’s program since it started last year.

“We want to attract talent, and we want them to stay,” said Mohammed Almazyad, a program manager for GAIA. “We used to rely heavily on oil, and now we want to diversify.”

One of the biggest enticements for A.I. start-ups is the chance to make the deep-pocketed Saudi government a customer. In one recent meeting, Abdullah Alswaha, a senior minister for communications and information technology, asked GAIA’s start-ups to suggest what they could provide for the Saudi government, including for megacity projects like Neom . Afterward, many of the companies received messages introducing them to state-owned businesses, Mr. Almazyad said.

“I would say this process at the first stages is not organic,” he said. “You don’t find this in Silicon Valley. Eventually the process will be organic.”

Deciding to set up in Riyadh comes with challenges. There’s the heat, reaching more than 110 degrees in the summer, as well as the adjustments of moving to a deeply religious Muslim kingdom. While Saudi Arabia has loosened some restrictions in recent years, freedom of speech remains limited and L.G.B.T.Q. people can face criminal penalties.

Mr. Almazyad, who hopes to eventually study in the United States, said cultural differences could make it hard to recruit international A.I. talent. But he cautioned against underestimating Saudi Arabia’s resolve.

“This is just the beginning,” he said.

Adam Satariano is a technology correspondent based in Europe, where his work focuses on digital policy and the intersection of technology and world affairs. More about Adam Satariano

Paul Mozur is the global technology correspondent for The Times, based in Taipei. Previously he wrote about technology and politics in Asia from Hong Kong, Shanghai and Seoul. More about Paul Mozur

Explore Our Coverage of Artificial Intelligence

News  and Analysis

Eight daily newspapers owned by Alden Global Capital sued OpenAI and Microsoft , accusing the tech companies of illegally using news articles to power their A.I. chatbots.

The spending that the tech industry’s giants expect A.I. to require, for the chips and data centers , is starting to come into focus — and it is jarringly large.

The table stakes for A.I. start-ups to compete with the likes of Microsoft and Google are in the billions of dollars. And even that may not be enough .

The Age of A.I.

A new category of apps promises to relieve parents of drudgery, with an assist from A.I . But a family’s grunt work is more human, and valuable, than it seems.

Despite Mark Zuckerberg’s hope for Meta’s A.I. assistant to be the smartest , it struggles with facts, numbers and web search.

Much as ChatGPT generates poetry, a new A.I. system devises blueprints for microscopic mechanisms  that can edit your DNA.

Could A.I. change India’s elections? Avatars are addressing voters by name, in whichever of India’s many languages they speak. Experts see potential for misuse  in a country already rife with disinformation.

Which A.I. system writes the best computer code or generates the most realistic image? Right now, there’s no easy way to answer those questions, our technology columnist writes .

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Trusted Health Information from the National Institutes of Health

Glaucoma: What you need to know

Glaucoma can make it seem like you’re looking through a tunnel.

Glaucoma is the name for a group of diseases that can damage the optic nerve in the eye. Glaucoma usually happens when the fluid pressure inside the eyes slowly rises and increases pressure inside the eye. About 3 million Americans have glaucoma, and it’s the second-leading cause of blindness worldwide.

If you have glaucoma, you may not have symptoms right away. But over time, you may slowly lose your peripheral (side) vision. It may seem like you’re looking through a tunnel. Over time, your central (straight-ahead) vision may decrease until you eventually lose your ability to see.

An eye exam can determine whether you have glaucoma. Your eye doctor will give you eye drops to dilate, (to widen your pupils) so the eye doctor can better see inside your eyes. They will also check your side vision.

People ages 60 and older, especially Hispanic and Latino people, are at higher risk for glaucoma. Black people older than 40 and anyone with a family history of glaucoma are also at higher risk for the condition. The National Eye Institute (NEI) recommends getting a comprehensive dilated eye exam every one to two years if you are higher risk.

What are the types of glaucoma?

There are many different types of glaucoma , but the most common in the United States is open-angle glaucoma. Some other types are angle-closure glaucoma and congenital or pediatric glaucoma, which babies can be born with. Cataracts and tumors can also cause glaucoma, but this is less common.

How is glaucoma treated?

There is no cure for glaucoma, but treatments can control it. Prescription eye drops and laser treatments can reduce eye pressure. If these don’t work, your doctor may recommend surgery. Specific treatments depend on the type of glaucoma.

Recent glaucoma research highlights

NEI supports many different research studies and clinical trials to better understand glaucoma.

Study: Is eye pigment connected to glaucoma?

Researchers followed 379 women for 15 years and found that less pigment in the macula of the eye may be an early warning sign of glaucoma . The macula is in the back of the eye and gives you clear central vision. Currently, glaucoma screenings only measure pressure inside the eye. But the condition can also happen in people with normal pressure in their eyes. The researchers suggested that eating foods rich in certain antioxidants can boost your macular pigment. These include foods like egg yolk, corn, red seedless grapes, carrots, squash, dark leafy greens, and broccoli.

Study: Can your metabolism help spot glaucoma?

Scientists are studying small molecules called metabolites to find out whether they can predict your risk of developing glaucoma . Metabolites form during metabolism, which is the process your body uses to break down nutrients in food or medicine. Researchers examined metabolites in blood samples from about 1,200 study participants. Those with higher levels of certain fats in their blood were more likely to develop glaucoma. If scientists can spot people at higher risk of glaucoma based on their metabolic profile, it could help doctors spot the disease before vision is completely lost.

See what it’s like to have glaucoma…with your phone!

  Users can download the NEI VR: See What I See smartphone app from the App Store or Google Play.

The NEI-VR: See What I See smartphone app uses virtual reality to demonstrate what the world looks like with glaucoma. The free app also has quizzes to test your knowledge about glaucoma and other eye diseases. Download the app through your device’s app store. Disclaimer: The NEI-VR: See What I See mobile application does not currently comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

May 02, 2024

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