A Planning Proposal to Establish a Franco-American Doctoral Student Exchange for Energy and Sustainability

该项目为2007年秋季在巴黎举行的研讨会提供支持，讨论建立一个新的法美博士网络。该网络的目标是美国和法国之间在能源和可持续发展主题领域进行大规模的博士生交流。美国首席研究员是佛罗里达大学的Michael Scott，两位共同研究人员是UIUC的Melanie Loots和Georgia Tech的Steven McLaughlin。法国合作者是Conference des Presidents d’Universities，即法国大学的官方全国委员会。本次研讨会的主要目标是：为博士网络建立一套具体的目标和成果；获得所有参与的美国和法国机构的承诺，以促进在2008年秋季启动博士网络的目标；建立网络的行政和财务结构；为网络建立运作框架，包括半年一次的工作坊和为学生提供的语言和文化资源。该博士网络计划利用美国和法国的研究和教育优势，加强两国之间的研究和机构联系。它可能会为美国学生提供出色的国际经验，帮助建立一支全球参与的科学队伍。该网络还计划包括一个正式的评估项目，该项目将研究国际学生共同指导的影响，可用于通知其他网络，并将积极努力增加具有国际研究经验的代表性不足的少数民族的人数。

This project provides support for a workshop in Paris of Fall 2007 to discuss the formation of a new Franco-American Doctoral Network. The goal of this network is the large-scale exchange of doctoral students between the U.S. and France in the subject areas of energy and sustainability. The U.S. principal investigator is Michael Scott of University of Florida, and the two co-PIs are Melanie Loots from UIUC and Steven McLaughlin from Georgia Tech. The French collaborators are the Conference des Presidents d'Universites, the official National Council of French Universities. The primary goals of this workshop are to: establish a concrete set of objectives and outcomes for the Doctoral Network; obtain commitments from all participating U.S. and French institutions to facilitate the goal of starting the Doctoral Network in Fall 2008; establish the administrative and financial structure of the network; establish an operational framework for the network to include semiannual workshops and language and cultural resources for the students.This doctoral network plans to leverage the research and educational strengths in the U.S. and France while strengthening research and institutional ties between the two countries. It will likely provide an outstanding international experience for U.S. students to help create a globally-engaged scientific workforce. The network also plans to include a formal assessment program that will study the impact of international co-advising of students, which can be used to inform other networks, and will actively work to increase the number of underrepresented minorities who have international research experiences.