IGERT: Multinational Collaborations on Challenges to the Environment

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The goal of our project is to create a new collaborative multinational model for interdisciplinary graduate education and research. In our approach, a small, dedicated, and carefully selected set of partner institutions will work in concert to: 1) develop collaborative and sustainable interdisciplinary graduate research opportunities; 2) implement new project-based courses which are offered cooperatively at multiple sites; 3) create international internship opportunities for participating graduate students, 4) implement a multinational mentoring, advising and communications network, 5) develop teaching and curriculum development experiences for graduate students which provide them with a rich international perspective on the challenges facing higher education, and 6) share experience in more effectively targeting university research to address practical problems facing our regions. Our partner universities are: Tohoku University (Japan), the University of Auckland (New Zealand), the Polytechnic of Namibia (Namibia), the University of Natal (South Africa), Eduardo Mondlane University (Mozambique), Can Tho University (Vietnam), Sichuan University and Tsinghua University (both in China). We will also work closely with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), our region's major governmental research lab, in the design of the research and educational programs for our students.Our focus on 5 interwoven environmentally-related themes, specifically 1) water quality and wastewater treatment; 2) "eco-materials" (or reducing the environmental cost of materials processing and use); 3) biodiversity, with a focus on botanical and aquatic systems; 4) goods and services from forest ecosystems; and 5) environmental social sciences. Together, we will implement a coherent and powerful set of interdisciplinary experiences for our students that will enable them to emerge as imaginative and effective leaders in our communities. Simultaneously, our program will offer new insight to all partners on the strengthening of graduate education across the disciplines. Our educational program incorporates: 1) participation in one or more of the 5 interdisciplinary thematic research clusters, as described above; 2) a year-long, project-based course on Coupled Human, Natural and Materials Systems, which brings together faculty and students from all of the 5 thematic clusters; 3) a required research internship at one of the partner institutions (6 - 12 months) under the supervision of a local co-advisor; 4) a "pedagogical" internship working either at the K-12 or undergraduate level on a project related to international educational reform in science and engineering; 5) an on-going weekly IGERT seminar; 6) two "dissertation workshops" (one in the early, problem-definition stage of their research, and another in the writing stage); and 7) activities focused on career awareness, ethics, and professional development, with a particular emphasis on the international dimensions of these issues.The Intellectual Merits of the proposal include: the high quality scientific research it will enable; the plans for linking the research to the solution of common, practical regional problems, and the innovative strategies for integrating international research and graduate education and training. The Broader Impacts of the program include 1) the contribution we will make to the generation of a globally-engaged, diverse and technically astute international workforce, and 2) the insight we will provide to the broader higher education community on such basic questions as: How to create international research experiences for our graduate students that are effectively integrated with the rest of their professional development and research; How to structure inter-institutional partnerships in graduate education such that the benefits are truly reciprocal and sustainable; How to structure interdisciplinary international programs so that they are more effective in attracting and retaining a diverse set of graduate students.