Research and Education for Sustainable Development in Africa
UMRP is a unique collaboration between MIT and the Université Mohammed VI Polytechnique that was founded in 2015 to pursue the knowledge and expertise critical for a future of sustainable development, while also helping build capacity at Morocco’s new flagship African university for the 21st century—UM6P. Our vibrant community is built around a strategic set of research projects currently encompassing: water resource management and climate change, sustainable precision agriculture, industrial optimization and circular economies of scale, green chemistry for high-value extractive resource processing, and urban metabolism as a framework for smart growth.
Each project is led by an MIT faculty PI directing the Ph.D. research of a dedicated MIT graduate student. These MIT project teams collaborate closely with colleagues at UM6P to expand the scope of the research in ways that leverage the strengths of both institutions. In particular, they take advantage of UM6P's "Living Laboratories," like it's experimental farm, mine, chemical processing plant, and even the urban co-evolution of the university within its host city of Ben Guerir. In all, UMRP generates targeted, tangible progress in research at MIT on a range of issues critically important to sustainable development in Africa, even as it nurtures the evolution of UM6P with a growing community of transatlantic cooperation.
About UM6P
Learn more about Université Mohammed VI Polytechnique in Ben Guerir, Morocco.
About MIT
Learn more about the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massacusetts.
