NSF Workshop Intern. STEM graduate education Washington DC, Feb 6, 2011 International university collaborations as a policy tool for higher education reform and innovation leverage A snapshot of the MIT-Portugal Program MIT-Portugal Program MIT Technology & Policy Program MIT Teaching & Learning Lab Harvard Program in Science, Technology, and Society Sebastian Pfotenhauer, PhD

NSF Workshop Intern. STEM graduate education Washington DC, Feb 6, 2011 An MIT tradition MIT has engaged in large-scale collaborations for decades India, Egypt, Argentina, Iran, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, UK, Abu Dhabi, Portugal, Russia (?) Different purposes: Capacity building in STEM education Excellence-building: Transfer educational best–practices & institutional governance Internationalization Systemic change for national HE & innovations systems Innovation & entrepreneurship leverage Experimental “one of” character of collaborations – no unified strategy?

NSF Workshop Intern. STEM graduate education Washington DC, Feb 6, 2011 MIT-Portugal in a nutshell MIT + 6 PT universites + 20 research centers Faculty: PT + MIT Students: PT, MIT 50+ industry affiliates 4 Engineering Systems focus areas Innov.- & mobility-centered curricula 5 year funding period 58.9 M€ (81.0 M$) Key facts:

NSF Workshop Intern. STEM graduate education Washington DC, Feb 6, : Portuguese “Technological Plan” and “National Plan for Employment” : OECD Review of tertiary education sector Nov. 2005: MIT approached by Portugal Feb 2006: agreement to conduct assessment: Identify feasible areas of collaboration February-July 2006: faculty visits in both directions October 2006: launch of 5-year program Sep 2008: launch of program assessment 2011 renewal negotiations for Phase 2 MPP timeline

NSF Workshop Intern. STEM graduate education Washington DC, Feb 6, 2011 Why MPP? Why university-based strategy in Portugal? Human resources: Mismatch between engineering education and innovation/industry needs S&T capacity: Key role of universities in production of knowledge and technology in catching-up countries National systems trajectory + international reform pressures (Bologna, Lisbon) New roles for universities in national innovation systems Some achievements: Raise student internationalization and selectivity Targeted human resource formation in innovation & entrepreneurship Increase networking between students & institutions, and industry linkages Excellence formation and critical mass-building: overcome tradition of research isolation and sub-critical funding dispersion Mobility: Shift from sending to receiving country International visibility and benchmarking Spillovers into the system!

NSF Workshop Intern. STEM graduate education Washington DC, Feb 6, 2011 Challenges, lessons, research needs Cultural differences, esp. in innovation & entrepreneurship Program objectives vs. administrative and legal framework conditions (multiple stakeholders, absorptive capacity of system, political interference) “Teaching the teachers” Slow program take-off vs. extremely high expectations & steep learning curve Real-time program assessment is crucial: – Demonstrate impact – Foster organizational learning – Study the generalizability of MIT-Portugal framework Problem: temporal lagging of effects & attribution problems Tools: comparative student surveys, special-purpose surveys, faculty interviews “One of” problem: unique character of international programs MIT Technology & Policy Program, MIT Teaching & Learning Lab, Cisco: Launch project on creating a “best-practice manual in international university collaborations” to systematize and preserve a set of unique lessons