MIT Energy Short Course

(MITEI), established in September 2006, is an Institute-wide initiative designed to help transform the global energy system to meet the needs of the future and to help build a bridge to that future by improving today's energy systems.

MIT President Susan Hockfield first announced an MIT energy initiative at her inauguration in May 2005. She said, "[It is] our institutional responsibility to address the challenges of energy and the environment....Tackling the problems that energy and the environment present will require contributions from all our departments and schools...bringing scientists, engineers and social scientists together to envision the best energy policies for the future."

She subsequently established an Energy Research Council (ERC) of 16 faculty members from all five schools, charged with exploring how MIT could best tackle the world’s energy crisis. After gathering extensive input from MIT faculty, students, staff, and alumni as well as key industrial leaders, the ERC prepared a report and submitted it to Hockfield in May 2006.

Drawing on the recommendations in that report, Hockfield launched MITEI the following fall, thrusting MIT into a new era of highly focused energy-related activity. The MITEI program now includes research, education, campus energy management and outreach activities that cover all areas of energy supply and demand, security and environmental impact.