The Essence of System-Level Design: Collaboration and Interdisciplinarity: A story of many research centers

Major technological innovation can arise either from breakthrough discoveries or from a visionary understanding of what becomes possible as technology evolves in combination with a methodology that leverages those developments. While breakthroughs often emerge from deep and focused exploration, visionary innovation typically relies on a meet-in-the-middle approach that integrates diverse disciplines to achieve an overarching goal. This is the essence of system-level design. By its very nature, it demands collaboration among researchers with varied expertise, usually brought together within organizations such as centers or institutes to pursue a common mission. To illustrate this point, we highlight several successful approaches in which Jan Rabaey has played a central role.