President Kornbluth outlines Institutional priorities for the new year
In an email to the MIT community on Sept. 5, MIT President Sally Kornbluth laid out a number of initiatives and priorities that the Institute is seeking to elevate in the new academic year. These included the MIT Collaboratives, the MIT GenAI Impact Consortium, the Climate Project at MIT, and developments towards “amplifying MIT’s policy influence.”
Kornbluth announced the inception of the MIT Collaborative, which is intended to bolster MIT’s faculty, to “‘go big’” and “purpose the most innovative ideas in their discipline” while promoting cross-pollination across fields. In October, the MIT Collaborative center under the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (SHASS) will begin, with a connectivity fund, among others, meant to foster collaboration between SHASS faculty and those from other schools at the Institute. In December, Kornbluth anticipates sharing an MIT Collaborative focused on the life sciences and health, with the goal of “inspiring and delivering high-impact solutions.”
The current state of AI development, at which MIT has been at the forefront of, has seen great change and great controversy. Following the success of a symposium on generative AI in the fall of 2023 and strong interest in the impact papers published by faculty in the previous academic year, the Institute will launch the GenAI Impact Consortium, which will continue to allow MIT to assert its position as a leader at the forefront of AI.
One of Kornbluth’s largest projects that she’s undertaken at the Institute, namely the Climate Project at MIT, announced its mission heads at an event Sep 16. Kornbluth also highlighted an effort by the Institute to “foster and inform evidence-based policymaking.”
Kornbluth ended the note with optimism, stating “I look forward to joining all of you in focusing our strengths on the Institute’s essential mission.”