In the past year, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and its Sloan School of Management have formalized working relationships with research universities in China, created a new faculty position to study China and received funding for grants that will allow many more MIT students to study in China.
These and other developments are part of a major, long-term effort to strengthen ties with China and encourage a greater exchange of research and innovation, the school reports.
These university-wide initiatives build on existing programs at MIT Sloan School of Management. In 1996, Sloan launched the MIT-China Management Education Project, which partners MIT Sloan faculty with faculty at Tsinghua University, Fudan University in Shanghai and Lingnan College of Zhongshan University in Guangzhou to develop courses. As part of the program, MIT both hosts Chinese professors and sends MIT Sloan faculty and students to China for teaching and consultation.
In 2008, MIT Sloan launched the China Lab, which lets MIT Sloan students hold internships with entrepreneurial firms in China.
And this year, MIT President Susan Hockfield signed an agreement with Shanghai Jiao Tong University to develop a seven-day executive-education course in energy. This new course will be offered multiple times per year in conjunction with the MIT Energy Initiative.
These developments within MIT Sloan complement initiatives in many other parts of the university. In 2008, MIT launched its MIT China Forum, which brings Chinese scholars, industrialists and government officials to campus regularly. In 2009, MIT entered into a collaboration with Tsinghua University and the University of Cambridge involving low-carbon energy research. And a recent $5 million donation will endow a new professorship for the study of Chinese culture at the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.
Even more initiatives could be in the works. Indeed, a September 2010 report by MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory recommended several new initiatives designed to promote intellectual and technological exchange with China. “If we are going to be involved in the resolution of global problems — whether sustainable cities, climate change, resource depletion, disease control or any other — we have to be able to understand and engage partners in China,” states the report.
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