Dear Rice Community,
Relationships with students, faculty and researchers from across the world are important to Rice. These relationships foster a healthy exchange of ideas, opportunities for future cooperation, research collaboration, faculty exchange and student training. International engagement is a leading criterion for world-class research universities.
Expanding Rice’s academic reach and reputation internationally is a top priority of my presidency, and I’m working with Vice President for Global Caroline Levander along with Provost Amy Dittmar and Vice President for Research Ramamoorthy Ramesh to achieve this goal in the coming years.
Rice begins with real strengths — our faculty are international, as are our students, and our international collaborations through MOUs and research partnerships have long been a strong suit of the university.
We seek to build on this base by developing a select number of high-impact sustained engagements with international partners that raise and extend Rice’s research and teaching. We have begun this effort with three endeavors:
- A comprehensive initiative in India, which began with the creation of the Rice/India Institute of Technology Kanpur joint Center for Energy Materials and moving forward may include a strong emerging partnership with Centers for Research and Education in Science and Technology (CREST) Kolkata in AI/machine learning, bioinformatics and energy as well as the possibility of an emerging interaction with the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, among other institutions. As we continue to develop our efforts, we welcome input from the campus community and ask that you visit https://global.rice.edu/india-partnerships or contact Caroline Levander with your ideas.
- The opening of the Rice Global Paris Center, which will become a focal point for the university’s broad engagement with Europe and beyond. Rice will be initiating a Spring and Fall Workshop Series at the Paris facility in April 2023 focused on science, technology and policy that will bring together faculty from Rice with key faculty/researchers in Europe and beyond. Additional research symposia and conferences, faculty-led student programs and faculty fellowships across all disciplines will be supported by the center. To learn more about the center and to submit an initial expression of interest, please visit https://global.rice.edu/pariscenter/paris-center-rfi.
- A Cooperation Agreement with the University of Edinburgh that jump-starts high-impact, cross-institutional collaborations across a range of research areas. To learn more about the first round of seed funding for research collaborations, please visit https://global.rice.edu/edinburgh.
Additional partnerships in Latin America, Europe and India are being explored. This summer, I traveled to Argentina and was honored to sign my first MOU as Rice’s president with Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires, one of the premier universities in Latin America. This program will allow ITBA students to earn a degree from their home institution while earning a master’s degree from Rice.
I also had the opportunity to participate in the American Society of Mexico’s 80th National Assembly and Convention. Good discussions were had about building a stronger, more sustainable and diverse bilateral relationship together with higher education institutions across the globe.
As we continue to develop our global strategy and ambitions, we ask for your input. Please share your ideas for sharing Rice’s outstanding ongoing and emerging research with the world at https://global.rice.edu.
Warm Regards,
President Reginald DesRoches