About the IREE Conference

The International Research and Education in Engineering (IREE) program of the National Science Foundation (NSF) was initiated in 2006 with the objective providing opportunities for early-career researchers in the U.S. to gain international research experience and perspective, and to enhance U.S. innovation in education and research through closer interaction between U.S. institutions and their foreign counterparts. Early-career researchers are defined as undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and tenure-track or tenured faculty members who are assistant or associate professors or their equivalent – who are working on current NSF awards. IREE offers supplemental funding to current Directorate for Engineering awards in participating divisions. It supports medium duration visits of between three to six months by U.S. early career researchers to collaborating institutions/laboratories outside of the U.S. The visits must be related to the objectives of ongoing work in current projects, augmented by evidence of engagement with the cultural activities in the countries visited.

Conference participants will include IREE awardees funded in 2007 and 2008. The overarching objective of the conference is to provide a venue and facilitated opportunity for the IREE awardees, both students and faculty, to share experiences and what they gained from their time abroad under IREE. The collective experiences and wisdom of the participants and conference organizers will be synthesized into a set of recommendations. The goal of these recommendations, as is the goal of the IREE program, is to enhance and improve the innovation and quality of the research funded by NSF by adding an international dimension.

Meeting Activities:

• Sessions where the Past IREE grantees (student and faculty participants) present the experiences and outcomes of their IREE global experience
• Plenary sessions pertaining to IREE issues within the National and International landscape and perspective
• Programmatic breakout sessions covering accomplishments in IREE funded activities, recommendations by faculty and students on future actions by NSF, and academic and industry stakeholders, etc.
• Thematic breakout sessions on crosscutting issues such as engineering education innovations; globalization of engineering curriculums; best practices to enhance innovation in domestic research programs through international cooperation; recommendations for future directions for international cooperation; models for advancing engineering education and research through international partnerships; etc.

Purdue University

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Edwin Daniel Hirleman; Yating Chang (2008), "International Research and Education in Engineering (IREE)," http://globalhub.org/resources/195.

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