International Aspects of TPP

Major technological issues have global implications. For example, the effects of modern communications, global warming, chemicals in the environment and bioengineering are not, and cannot be, confined to a single region or country. The questions they raise must ultimately be dealt with internationally.

We must think globally about technology policy, even when we can only act locally in our own communities or companies. This is not easy however; it involves much, much more than extending one's ideas abroad. The nations of the world have quite different needs and opportunities, and quite different objectives and procedures for resolving issues. Acquiring an appropriate international perspective requires significant efforts to learn about and appreciate alien perspectives.

The MIT Technology and Policy Program actively developed international understanding through its students, curriculum, research, institutional relations, and faculty exchanges. This global outlook is a distinctive feature of the Program.

Faculty recruit each year an entering class of students with a broad range of international backgrounds, representing both the industrialized countries and the third world. The foreign students normally constitute about half of the class and to date have represented over 50 countries. To facilitate this process the Program maintains close connections with institutions such as the Conference des Grandes Ecoles in France, the Science Technology Agency in Japan, the US Agency for International Development, and the Kennedy Scholarship Fund in the United Kingdom, as well as with the Technical University of Delft and the Instituto Superior Technico of Portugal.

The curriculum builds upon this international student body. Throughout the core subjects, students participate in international teams and deal with transnational issues. This offers excellent opportunities to appreciate a variety of cultural perspectives for both foreign and US students.

American students are encouraged to participate in international exchanges. TPP'ers regularly enter the MIT-Japan Science and Technology Program and work in Japan for a year or more, spend summers on internships abroad or obtain Rhodes, Marshall, Wilson or other fellowships for international exchange. The Technology and Policy Program also has its own Marvin and Joanne Grossman Award for International Understanding and other internships which, in recent years, has sent TPP students to Bulgaria, Chile, Costa Rica, Czechoslovakia, Guatamala, Japan, Russia, Singapore, and Sri Lanka.

The Technology and Policy Program is building a network of relationships between comparable institutions in Europe, Asia, and North America. We have formal agreements with the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussees (France), the Ecole Centrale de Paris, the Instituto Mexicano del Transporte, and the National Institute for Science and Technology Policy (Japan). We also maintain close ties with Australian, British, Norwegian and many US universities.

This international network includes exchanges of faculty and researchers. Over the last few years for example, the Technology and Policy Program has hosted:

• Dr. Mohammed Afifi - Lecturer and Researcher at the University of Cairo, Egypt
• Professor C. Nelson Dorny - Department of Systems Engineering, University of Pennsylvania
• Dr. Stefan Gara - University of Technology and University of Economics in Business Administration in Vienna, Austria
• Professor Marina von Geenhuizen - Department of Systems Engineering, Policy Analysis nd Management, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
• Dr. Wilfried Jager - University of Technology and University of Economics in Business Administration in Vienna, Austria
• Takao Kiba - Senior Researcher, National Institute of Science and Technology Policy, Science and Technology Agency, Tokyo, Japan
• Professor Chen Lin - Deputy Director of the Systems Engineering Research Center, Yunnan University, Peoples' Republic of China
• Franck Maginot - Research intern from the Master's in International Business Program of the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussees, Paris, France
• Yasuhiko Ota - Journalist of the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Tokyo
• Dr. Youngmoo Park - Division of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Ajou University, Korea
• Professor Robin E. Pope - Department of Economics and Management, University College, Canberra and The University of New South Wales, Australia
• Professor Venkitaswamy Raju - Department of Manufacturing Engineering Technology, Rochester Institute of Technology
• Dr. Will Sanders - Lecturer in Political Science at the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
• Dr. Vladimir Usatyuk - Senior Teacher, Institute of National Economy, Rostov-on-don, Russia
• Dr. Marc Willinger - Researcher in the Economics of Technological Innovation at the University of Strasbourg, France
• Yoshio Yamawaki - Staff Member, Science and Technology Agency, Tokyo, Japan
• Dr. Benjamin Yuan - Institute of Managment of Technology, National Chiao-Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan

The faculty and staff of the Technology and Policy Program have also accumulated substantial international experience either because they came from overseas or have spent considerable time abroad on visiting appointments or consulting activities.