Research Alliances

MIT's extensive research interests extend globally through creative collaborations with leading research institutes and consortia in the United States and around the world.

Alliance for Global Sustainability

A research and educational partnership of MIT, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, the University of Tokyo, and Chalmers University of Technology of Sweden, the Alliance for Global Sustainability (AGS) brings scientists, engineers, and social scientists together to address the complex global environmental issues that profoundly affect social and economic progress. AGS has built a multidisciplinary international forum with colleagues from government, industry, and other public and private institutions worldwide. Through its initiatives, the program advances the understanding of complex problems and develops policies and practices that are urgently needed to solve them. AGS research initiatives currently focus largely on near-term pathways for a sustainable energy future.

Broad Institute

The Broad Institute is a biomedical research institute with the mission of creating a comprehensive toolkit for genomic medicine, ensuring its broad availability to all of the world's scientists, and applying these tools to propel the understanding and treatment of human disease. The Broad Institute is a collaboration of MIT, Harvard University, the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, and Harvard-affiliated hospitals. Faculty from each of these institutions come together to develop scientific programs that utilize the institute's unique ability to undertake large-scale or multidisciplinary projects on a variety of high-throughput scientific platforms.

Charles Stark Draper Laboratory

Formerly MIT's Instrumentation Laboratory, Draper Laboratory became an independently operated, not-for-profit research and educational organization in 1973. Joint research activities have allowed the laboratory to continue its unique contributions to the Institute's educational program. A number of MIT faculty members maintain a close association with the laboratory through joint research and Draper-funded on-campus research. More than 45 graduate students are completing their thesis work at Draper. The laboratory also participates in the undergraduate Electrical Engineering and Computer Science 6A Program. Adjacent to the main campus, Draper Laboratory is located at 555 Technology Square. Further information is available at http://www.draper.com/.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute is a scientific and philanthropic organization that conducts biomedical research in collaboration with universities, academic medical centers, hospitals, and other research institutions throughout the country. Fourteen HHMI investigators hold faculty appointments at MIT.

Northeast Radio Observatory Corporation

A consortium of nine universities and institutions in the northeastern United States, this program promotes radio astronomy research with emphasis currently on the development of radio arrays at low frequencies for studies of the early universe and solar wind. Its principal facility is MIT's Haystack Observatory in Westford, MA. The observatory is also engaged in geodetic research using very long baseline interferometry, and in observations of the earth's upper atmosphere using incoherent scatter radar.

Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research

Whitehead Institute is a nonprofit independent research institution affiliated with MIT in its teaching activities and wholly responsible for its own research programs, governance, and finance. Whitehead carries out cutting-edge research in stem cells, cancer, neurodegenerative disease, infectious disease, genetics, cloning, developmental biology, proteomics, bioinformatics, and molecular biology.

World Wide Web Consortium

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was created to develop common protocols that enhance the interoperability and promote the evolution of the World Wide Web. It is an industry consortium jointly run by MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in the United States, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics in Europe, and Keio University in Japan. Services provided by the consortium include a repository of information about the World Wide Web for developers and users; reference code implementations to embody and promote standards; and various prototype and sample applications to demonstrate the uses of new technology. To date, over 400 organizations are members of the consortium. The W3C is led by director Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, and chief operating officer Steve Bratt. Additional information about the consortium can be found at http://www.w3.org/.