The Georgia Institute of Technology’s 1990 decision to open a campus in Metz, France, was an innovation catered to a growing trend of internationalizing research and graduate studies.

That trend and its implications for trans-Atlantic relations are to be the focus of a two-day workshop to be held at Georgia Tech's Atlanta campus Nov. 17-18.

In addition to the European Union’s Washington office, the governments of the Czech Republic, France, Slovenia and Sweden are promoting the event. France presides over the Council of the European Union until the end of 2008.

France’s ambassador to the U.S., Pierre Vimont, is to attend a dinner on Nov. 19 at which the Swedish minister for research and education, Lars Leijonborg, is to speak.

“Globalization has had quite an impact on the careers of science and technology graduates,” John McIntyre, a professor at Georgia Tech’s College of Management and director of the university’s federally funded Center for International Business Education and Research, told GlobalAtlanta.

“We have an insight into what is happening because of our Metz campus, but the trend is now affecting many companies as well as academic institutions.”

The workshop aims specifically to identify obstacles to increasing trans-Atlantic mobility of students and researchers and to find ways to strengthen the exchange of scientists and engineers between the EU and the U.S. leading to greater innovation, productivity gains and mutual understanding.

He recommended that research leaders and policy-makers at universities, research institutes, companies, ministries, agencies and research promotion organizations attend.

Panelists include eminent figures in the sciences including Peter Agre, a Nobel Prize winner and vice-chancellor of science and technology at Duke University; Ishwar Puri, head of engineering science at Virginia Institute of Technology;

Leopold Demiddeleer, director of Solvay Future Businesses and president of the European Industrial Research Management Association and many others.

The Georgia Tech program in Metz offers courses in five main areas: graduate level education with degree programs in electrical and computer engineering and in mechanical engineering; sponsored research which in one case led to the creation of a joint research laboratory for the development of secure and high-speed telecommunications;

an undergraduate summer program in electrical and computer engineering and in mechanical engineering, management and international affairs; continuing education for practicing engineers and managers;

and local economical development programs for high-tech companies.