"The number of domestic students enrolling in engineering is dwindling," Puri said. "We hope with an innovative program to attract students who are interested in global issues with a technical perspective."
Tech students in ESM wanting to participate in the program would be responsible for identifying a committee in the partner university that has a similar research interest.
In addition to the partnerships with Politecnico di Milano and Jadavpur University, ESM is currently working to design collaborative programs with the University of Rome La Sapienza and Tianjin University in China. "It would be nice to eventually have a program on every continent," Puri said.
ESM currently has a collaborative program with Tunisia Polytechnic School in La Marsa, Tunisia, offering a master's degree in computational mechanics. The program was established with funds from the U.S. State Department.
Partner universities are chosen because of the "synchronous culture" with ESM and past relationships ESM has had with those universities. These can be long-standing faculty relations, former students or postdoctoral students who have come to the department.
Another aspect is the level of service and outreach at the respective universities, and the ability of ESM to partner with universities that are seeking to improve their graduate education programs.
"We insist on visiting the departments and having them come visit us here," Hajj said. "It is very labor intensive."
According to Jadavpur University officials, the new program is the first collaboration of its type between an Indian university and a university in the United States.
ESM is currently the only department on campus that has a collaborative doctoral program with another university.
"ESM has a culture of innovation in education and outreach. This program falls into our culture of innovation," Puri said.
Tech also offers graduate courses through partner universities in Egypt and India, but they do not involve students coming to the Tech campus during their studies.
Tech's Middle East and North Africa Graduate Program offers master's and doctoral programs in electrical engineering, computer engineering and computer science through the Arab Academy for Science and Technology in Cairo.
A collaborative Master's of Information Technology is offered through SP Jain Institute of Management Research in Mumbai, India.
In addition to these programs are numerous on-going projects at the Office of International Research, Education and Development, particularly donor-funded collaborative research projects. Within OIRED, is the office of Education Abroad, which sends more than 900 students abroad for studies annually.
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