MIT/CRE Industry Partners
Since its founding in 1983, the MIT Center for Real Estate has partnered with organizations in every sector of the global real estate industry. Our partnerships aim to benefit each of the Center's constituent groups — the partners themselves, MIT/CRE students, faculty, and researchers — in a positive collaboration that serves the industry as a whole.
The Center's partners are among our greatest assets. Bringing a wealth of experiences and a range of resources and interests, our partners share a common commitment to improving the built environment. Partners join our mission in various creative ways, helping us to apply rigorous research and unparalleled education to contemporary issues in real estate.
By establishing an affiliation with MIT as a partner with the Center for Real Estate, industry sponsors help to advance key research into real estate theory and practice, while gaining special access to the Center's intellectual capital and global network.
Benefits of Partnership
MIT/CRE's innovative research contributes to an ever-expanding knowledge base, which in turn informs our educational offerings. Organizations that partner with us enjoy unique access to a full range of our innovative research and education programs. Partnership benefits are many:
Hiring future leaders. With direct access to MIT students, partners can establish early relationships with the future leaders of the industry. Many partners have hired our students immediately upon graduation, bringing talented professionals onto their teams while saving human resources costs and recruitment fees.
Defining research. Partners may receive priority in the sponsorship of student thesis topics, and help to define the focus of specific student research. When partners work with students on initiatives that are relevant to their firms, they gain valuable research-driven insights into important current issues.
Global networking. MIT/CRE partnerships span the planet. As the real estate industry becomes more globally interconnected, the Center extends the scope of its work across international borders, partners find greater value in networking with other leaders in international real estate, in the kind of collaborative, trans-national settings that Center programs offer.
Getting "FIRE'd up". Throughout the year, the Center produces numerous annual and special conferences that link industry practitioners with key research. Our FIRE (Forums on Issues and Innovations in Real Estate) series in particular gives partners access to our latest research and to contacts in the global real estate community.
Shaping the industry's future. The Center's innovative research initiatives — including New Century Development (NCD), the Housing Affordability Initiative (HAI), and the Commercial Real Estate Data Laboratory (CREDL) — are changing the nature of real estate. By playing meaningful roles in these initiatives, partners can become shareholders in the market trends of the future.
Sharpening skills and knowledge. Partners enjoy a significant discount on all the Center's Professional Development Courses. As partner employees expand their knowledge base in MIT's unique learning environment, they disseminate new knowledge throughout the firm, leveraging the course's benefits for the entire partner organization.
Shaping the curriculum. Partner organizations can help to develop of the Center's curriculum in numerous ways. Some partners, for instance, make regular presentations to the Center's classes. Others serve as resources for student team projects. By engaging in the Center's curriculum in these ways and more, partners can hone their skills in presentation, consultation, and mentoring; establish relationships that may generate long-term returns; and explore exceptional opportunities to learn through research.
Get Involved
The best way to benefit from a partnership with MIT/CRE is to actively participate in Center's growth and development. Our most successful partners realize that they can largely define their own roles, and maximize their investment in the Center by creatively engaging with us in their own way. Ultimately, opportunities for firms to participate in the Center's work are only as limited as the imagination.
For more information on partnering with the MIT Center for Real Estate, please see Becoming a Partner. For additional information or questions, please call or email Lisa Thoma, Associate Director, at 617-253-2680.
