While other universities are pulling out of overseas projects, MIT is expanding into Russia. President Susan Hockfield flew over to Moscow for yesterday’s grip-and-grin – and there was a lot to grip.
From the Globe:
MIT and the foundation inked a 70-page agreement — the result of nearly two years of negotiations — that calls for them to partner in minute detail on curriculum design, recruitment, and even job descriptions.
But, here’s where we loosen the grip a bit. The storty describes Seda Pumpyanskaya as" an official with the Skolkovo Foundation, the Russian-backed nonprofit that is building and partly funding the complex…"
“It won’t be under MIT’s brand. It’s going to be an independent entity,” Pumpyanskaya said. “But we hope to create on the European scale something similar to MIT, prestigious and well-designed.”
More from the MIT news office:
“MIT and SkTech, working together, aim to create a new model for graduate education and research in science and technology,” said MIT President Susan Hockfield. “SkTech will offer MIT and other universities throughout the world new opportunities for collaboration with the excellent scientists and engineers in Russia’s universities and research institutes, and its structure will promote a multidisciplinary approach to difficult scientific problems.”
Education and research at SkTech will be organized around multidisciplinary technological challenges, rather than traditional academic disciplines. The new institution will focus on the following programs:
- energy science and technology
- biomedical science and technology
- information science and technology
- space science and technology
- nuclear science and technology
Sharing space and nuclear technology with Russia? We wonder if there are any old cold warriors out that who will object to giving away secrets that spies once had to steal.