IBM is meeting with UK universities this week to campaign for the creation of a multidisciplinary course that includes computer science, engineering, business, and social science.

The technology vendor believes that such a course, called Services Science, Management and Engineering (SSME), will help to generate the skills required for a global economy based increasingly around services.

The campaign matches a recommendation from Computing's Agenda Setters initiative that university computer science courses should be mixed with other disciplines, such as business or life sciences (Computing, 23 September).

Dr James Spohrer, a director at IBM's research unit, says there has been a major shift towards services in the world economy over the past 25 years.

'If we look at certain firms, few people realise that 70 per cent of GE's revenues are based on services,' he said. 'IBM is more than 50 per cent services. In the US, 70 per cent of the economy is based on services.'

Spohrer says government policy should pay more attention to prioritising multidisciplinary services research and education centres, businesses should be investing more to make innovation in services more systematic, and academic silos should be bridged.

'Industry, academics and government must work more closely to articulate the need, and the potential national and global benefits,' he said.

Mari Sako, a professor of management studies at Oxford University's Saïd Business School, says this shift is already happening in some ways, but that it is difficult for academic institutions to change to embrace current business trends.

'Wherever there are new markets students want to get jobs in them, so I am sure there will be a natural demand for courses such as this,' she said.

'But academia in the UK is discipline-based; silos continue to exist, and it's very difficult to change that.'

Sako says government could play a greater role in driving change. 'Changing incentives is very important. The government could do more,' she said.