The goal of the National Science Foundation’s International Research Experiences for Students (IRES) program is to provide high quality educational experiences for small groups of U.S. students through active research participation in collaboration with foreign researchers at an international site and provide students with international collaborative research training and a personal network on which to build future collaborations. Interdisciplinary Research in Korea on Applied smart systems (IRiKA) is an NSF IRES Track I program that commenced in 2019. Over the lifetime of this 3-year project (2019 - 2021), a cohort of 5 students selected from three participating U.S. institutions are to be supported each year, making the total number of participants 15. In Summer 2019, the first cohort of five students completed their 8-week immersive research internship at Korea’s top-ranked university. COVID-19 affected most, if not all, in-bound and out-bound international programs. IRiKA was no exception. In late February 2020, the program was canceled altogether because no viable alternative could be offered for Summer 2020, as institutions world-wide were grappling with disruptive challenges the pandemic brought on. In Fall 2020, with contingency plans in place and an additional Korean host site aboard, the project team solicited applications. However, in early 2021, before the final selection of the 2021 cohort was complete, two of the U.S. participating institutions announced that international travel would not be permitted for their faculty and students. The project team went on to select a cohort from one U.S. institution only and continued to monitor the travel health notice level for Korea. While some modifications were made to the in-country program to comply with the COVID-19 regulations in Korea, the 8-week research experience was in-person and remained largely uncompromised for the 2021 cohort. In this Work-in-Progress paper, the three US-based lead investigators compare the two versions of the IRiKA program – before and during the pandemic – and share the lessons learned. The no-cost-extension will allow IRiKA to continue until Summer 2022. Selection of the Summer 2022 cohort will be complete by early March of 2022.
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International Collaboration: Experiences of Indian Scientists and Engineers after Returning from the United States
This article presents findings on international research collaboration from a National Science Foundation-funded study with 83 faculty in science and engineering (S&E) who returned to India after studying and working in the United States. These faculty members were brought up in the Indian socio-cultural context, but they were professionalized in the scientific culture of Western academia. When they returned to India to take a faculty position, they knew collaborators in the US with desired skills, including their advisors. Yet, returned Indian migrant faculty face significant challenges in establishing successful international research collaboration with their American peers. Interestingly, this is not the case with collaborators from Europe and other parts of the world with whom they had little connection before moving to India. Findings show some inequities that exist between scientists and engineers in the US and India that pertain to resources and attitudes towards collaboration.
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- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10082679
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Perspectives on global development and technology
- Volume:
- 17
- Issue:
- 5-6
- ISSN:
- 1569-1500
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 593-613
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1163/15691497-12341498
