A Global Strategy for MIT

To members of the MIT community:

I am writing to share with you a new report, A Global Strategy for MIT, prepared at the request of President Reif and Provost Schmidt. The report, which Provost Schmidt recently shared with the faculty, can be accessed here.

The report addresses three important questions for MIT in the coming years:

• How can our international activities best contribute to advancing the frontiers of knowledge in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship?
• How can they help bring forefront knowledge to bear on solving the world’s most challenging problems?
• How can they contribute to educating future leaders who will work creatively, cooperatively, effectively, and wisely for the betterment of humankind?

The report affirms the centrality of international engagement to MIT’s mission. It argues that “working across borders, collaborating with international partners, and tackling some of the world’s most difficult problems are fundamental to MIT's institutional values.”

The report outlines a plan to build a more robust platform to support the international initiatives of individual faculty. It also proposes a framework for selecting and undertaking larger-scale activities to increase MIT’s impact in the world. It incorporates a number of practical recommendations for achieving these goals, and identifies several core principles to guide our future international engagements

I welcome your comments on the report. Comments can be sent to comments-globalstrategy@mit.edu. Alternatively, please feel free to contact me directly.

Sincerely,

Richard Lester
Associate Provost for International Activities