The International Research and Education in Engineering (IREE) program of the National Science Foundation (NSF) was initiated in 2006 with the objective of 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. The IREE program used a supplemental funding mechanism to support 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 Second Grantees Conference was held May 2-3, 2008 in Washington DC primarily for 2007 Grantees and researchers for whom the international experience was to occur in summer 2008 or later. The collective experiences and wisdom of the participants and conference organizers has been published and is available Proceedings of the 2008 NSF IREE Grantees Conference: Summary and Recommendations.

Meeting Activities:

• Sessions where the Past IREE grantees (student and faculty participants) presented 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 curricula; 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.

Below are trip reports from the IREE awardees listed by the last name of the authors.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Yating (Chang) Haller; Edwin Daniel Hirleman (2009), "NSF IREE 2008 Grantees Conference," http://globalhub.org/resources/819.

1. global engineering 132
2. International Education 10
3. International Research 11
4. iree 2008 122
5. research 5