Scope

MIT engages in numerous international projects, and some activities recur in different forms in many of our international agreements. These include:

• Research.
• Institution building.
• Innovation and entrepreneurship.
• Education and curriculum development.
• Assistance with faculty recruitment and training.
• Personnel exchange.

Consider early in your planning what activities will occur during the course of the project, what value the activities bring to the MIT community, and what lessons can be learned from prior projects.

• Will the project support freedom of expression, communication, and publication?
• Will the project promote honesty and integrity, and what pressures will there be, if any, for results to support a particular outcome?
• Will the project promote MIT’s commitment to excellence and advance our preeminence as a world-class research and education institution?
• Will the project allow inclusion of all relevant collaborators in the MIT community and promote fairness in the treatment of all individuals and groups?
• Will the project help attract and engage people uniquely qualified to do this kind of work?

Are you and the sponsor aligned in this vision?

• What might cause it to fail?
• Do you have an appropriate assessment and correction plan in place, such as annual internal reviews?
• Is there an appropriate and defined exit strategy for the project?

A discussion about this at the outset will help ensure that you and the sponsor have the same thing in mind. We are very good at initiating projects at MIT, but often have less information about the timeline for the project and eventual and appropriate phase-out.

International collaborators often ask MIT to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to memorialize discussions about a potential collaboration. MIT generally doesn’t negotiate or sign MOUs or other documents that simply state that discussions are taking place, preferring to work on and document the actual scope and terms of projects.