International

For the past nine years NPRE ILLINOIS has joined with the University of Pisa to give students both at Illinois and in Italy an opportunity for an educational and cultural exchange. In 2011, NPRE began reaching out to the countries of Singapore and Sweden for possible exchanges and collaboration.

Exchange and Collaboration Programs

Italy

Since 2003, NPRE ILLINOIS Department Head Jim Stubbins and Prof. Rizwan Uddin have worked with Dr. Calogero Sollima from the University of Pisa. Each year in the middle of May, 12 to 15 Illinois engineering students travel with the NPRE ILLINOIS professors for six weeks of study in Italy. Courses focus on energy sources and uses, renewables, fossil fuels and nuclear.

The past three years, 12 to 15 Italian students have come to Illinois for six weeks each September. They take courses in energy, English and their own areas of interest.

Jordan

Since 2007, NPRE ILLINOIS faculty members have been working with officials from the Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST) to train Jordan graduate students to develop a nuclear engineering faculty at JUST. NPRE ILLINOIS also has helped organize the first International Nuclear & Renewable Energy Conference held in 2010 in Jordan, and will help with the second to be held in 2012.

Singapore

The country’s government has established a major collaboration with Illinois’ Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science departments with the 2009 establishment of the Advanced Digital Sciences Center, a major research center. More recently, Singapore has been expanding its relationship with other departments, including NPRE ILLINOIS, which is working with Singapore officials to establish short courses and a workshop there.

Sweden

NPRE ILLINOIS also was part of the initial effort by the Urbana campus and KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm in spring 2011 to form a long-term strategic alliance to benefit students and faculty at both institutions.