Global Partners
"The study, and all of the products in the Deliverable Packet, were done very professionally, and the study has been transformative for us involved in this work in CRS. The findings have very important ramifications for our work and the work of the students (and their supervisors) is greatly appreciated!"
A Partnership Approach to Global Challenges
The world’s most critical challenges cannot be effectively addressed by expertise drawn from any single discipline. Complex challenges require insights from economics and theology, sociology and the humanities, political science and global health, engineering and law, public policy and education, design and business, among others.
Universities offer a tremendously rich environment, with deep wells of expertise in such areas that can be leveraged to address global crises. The University of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs builds on this capacity in new and transformative ways through the Integration Lab (i-Lab). The i-Lab operates at the intersection of education, scholarship and practice to help its partners envision innovative approaches to their particular challenges.
The i-Lab Global Partner Experience
The i-Lab is a unique curricular experience over an 18-month arc of the Keough School’s Master of Global Affairs (MGA) program. Under the guidance of the i-Lab directors, partners gain the sustained assistance of talented teams of MGA students and their faculty mentors to generate concrete deliverables responsive to the partners’ needs.
Student teams spend a full calendar year working with partner organizations to address identified challenges or opportunities. This Global Partner Experience (GPE) involves field work (that might be based in local communities, a field office, or spread over multiple sites) and culminates in the delivery of a customized product that delivers real value.
MGA students assist with the identification and evaluation of challenges, forge responses to emerging opportunities, and design effective and sustainable strategies. Partner organizations thus benefit from a distinctive and valuable source of talent and experience, while playing a transformative role in the development of young professionals who are making a global impact even before graduation.
The Global Partner Experience is designed to deliver value to the partner organization and ensure an enriching experience for the students.
GPE Timeline
August - December
- Identify project and field sites
- Approve student teams
- Share background material
January - May
- Negotiate scope of work
- Participate in workshop series
- Engage in team project design
June & July
- Support team fieldwork
- Mentor and review progress
- Debrief on initial findings
August - December
- Provide feedback on project deliverable
- Evaluate overall experience
Our Global Partners
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