WPI in, for, and with the World

Faced with urgent grand challenges, communities around the globe seek solutions and astute and caring partners to help them build a safer, sustainable, and more habitable world. The Global School responds to that need—as only WPI can.

The Global School prepares true global problem solvers through undergraduate and graduate programs founded on the university’s half-century of leadership in project-based learning—an educational approach infused across the entire curriculum. Its students and faculty go out into the world to address social, technological, ecological, and economic challenges through interdisciplinary, purpose-driven research. And, expanding on the local contacts WPI has cultivated through almost five decades of on-site project work at a network of over 50 sites around the globe, the school fosters strong and effective global partnerships.

Engaging the entire university in engaging with the world, the Global School at WPI focuses the resources and experience of one of the nation’s top technological universities to have a positive impact on the world’s problems.

Students working at a Global Project Centers with windmills in the background
Projects
The Global School rests on a foundation of extraordinary project work conducted over the past half century. Through team-based, life-changing, interdisciplinary projects that address real issues, this work can be felt by communities around the world.
Global Projects Program
Great Problems Seminar
SWEET Center
Grand Challenges Scholars
WPI students conducting research
Research
Drawing on deep area knowledge and concern for social justice, our interdisciplinary research, in collaboration with governments, NGOs, and other global organizations, uses design thinking to develop solutions that support community needs and aspirations.
Grand Challenges Research
Global Lab
WPI Provost Wole Soboyejo shaking hands at an MS4SSA conference
Partnerships
The Global School understands the vital importance of collaborating with local communities to define issues and co-produce solutions that work for people who use them. WPI has learned this through partnerships at over 50 project centers on 6 continents.
Network of Project Centers
Center for Global Public Safety
China Hub
Latin America/Caribbean Studies
Sub-Saharan Africa Initiative

Solving the Grand Challenges at WPI

Focused on Grand Challenges

From the smallest village to the largest city, people around the world face a common set of needs: potable water, reliable food supplies, clean energy, a healthy and stable environment. These and other global grand challenges are at the core of the mission that drives The Global School—and WPI overall. It is central to academic programs, its student and faculty research, and the university's partnerships with communities and organizations around the globe. As a critical part of WPI's preparation of STEM professionals with a keen global perspective and the opportunity to collaborate with those who best understand the needs at the local level, The Global School will have a lasting impact.

News

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Robert Langer
‘Edison of Medicine,’ Robert Langer, Kicks Off The Global School Virtual Event Series
October 07, 2020
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WPI student and local artisanal gold miner working together in Ghana last winter.
WPI Kicks Off Celebration of The Global School, Hosting Yearlong Speaker Series on Global Challenges
October 02, 2020
2020 Global Fair graphic
2020 Global Fair Kicks Off Chock Full of Info on Global Projects Program
September 04, 2020
Grand Challenge Scholars
Herd Revisited - Revisiting the Grand Challenges Scholars
August 10, 2020

Media Coverage

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Telegram.com
WPI to Launch New Global School, Increase International Presence

Provost Wole Soboyejo was interviewed by the Telegram & Gazette as WPI announced the launch of The Global School and its search for an inaugural dean. The Global School will reinforce WPI’s global project centers with students working on advanced degrees, as well as additional faculty support, and will lead to the development of more sophisticated and sustainable solutions to local issues, Soboyejo said.​

Events

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Greater Purpose. Fewer Boundaries. Affiliated Initiatives.

Institute of Science and Technology for Development

Building on WPI's long tradition of addressing the major social, technological, ecological, and economic challenges facing people around the world, the Institute of Science and Technology for Development uses new approaches to cross-cultural engineering design to respond to global issues in collaboration with local communities.

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PhD Global Research Experience Award

Providing PhD candidates the opportunity to engage with an international collaborator in a research project related to their graduate work, the program helps students develop a global network and contacts and learn about culture-specific drivers of technology and innovation. Through the program, students have traveled to research laboratories in the UK, Switzerland, Japan, and several other countries.

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Social Justice

From climate change research to closing the socio-economic divide between populations and communities, many of WPI's students, faculty, and staff are taking an action-oriented approach to social justice issues, striving toward equitable opportunities and equal economic, educational, political, and social rights for all.

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Social Justice

Critical Conversation Series

Launched in 2018, this series explores tough questions being asked in the world. Touching on topics as diverse as genetically engineered babies and the impact of 5G technology, the program provides a forum for experts from across the WPI community as well as the university’s strategic partners to respond to complex issues.

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Critical Conversations Series
School of Arts & Sciences
Foisie Business School
School of Engineering
The Global School