The mission of MIT is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.
The Institute is committed to generating, disseminating, and preserving knowledge, and to working with others to bring this knowledge to bear on the world’s great challenges. MIT is dedicated to providing its students with an education that combines rigorous academic study and the excitement of discovery with the support and intellectual stimulation of a diverse campus community. We seek to develop in each member of the MIT community the ability and passion to work wisely, creatively, and effectively for the betterment of humankind.
The Institute admitted its first students in 1865, four years after the approval of its founding charter. The opening marked the culmination of an extended effort by William Barton Rogers, a distinguished natural scientist, to establish a new kind of independent educational institution relevant to an increasingly industrialized America. Rogers stressed the pragmatic and practicable. He believed that professional competence is best fostered by coupling teaching and research and by focusing attention on real-world problems. Toward this end, he pioneered the development of the teaching laboratory.
Today MIT is a world-class educational institution. Teaching and research—with relevance to the practical world as a guiding principle—continue to be its primary purpose. MIT is independent, coeducational, and privately endowed. Its five schools and one college encompass numerous academic departments, divisions, and degree-granting programs, as well as interdisciplinary centers, laboratories, and programs whose work cuts across traditional departmental boundaries.
This artist’s impression shows a view of the planet Proxima b orbiting the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the solar system.
ESO/M. Kornmesser
Beyond the outer edge of the Solar System, mysterious, unknown worlds await by the thousands. Astronomers can now finally find them and explore them - but will we find another Earth?
Virtually all megaprojects are urban in nature and location.
jamesteohart/Shutterstock
Yossi Sheffi, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
InterContinental Hotels Group plans to switch miniature toiletries for bulk products, but it isn't likely to do as much for the environment as activists might think.
Vista interior de The Vessel, mirador construido en el barrio neoyorquino rebautizado como Hudson Yards.
igormattio /Pixabay
Malvika Verma, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Treating infectious diseases is a huge challenge because patients often fail to take the medicine for the long duration, especially for tuberculosis. Now there's a new device that may help.
Using an artistic eye when creating pictures of scientific phenomena and new technologies can elevate the resulting images in terms of both their beauty and how informative they are.
The race to get rid of transportation emissions is getting off to a slow start.
AP Photo/Terrin Waack
Only a small share of the vehicles Americans buy are electric. Even if all of them were, it would take until 2040 to phase out the fossil fuels used to power personal travel and road-bound freight.
The future of work could look more like this.
BigBlueStudio/Shutterstock.com
While some alarmists predict AI will decimate the workforce, the truth is concerted action by leaders in labor, business, government and education can ensure workers aren't replaced by robots.
Work cut out for them: Climate negotiators need to ensure the Paris Agreement can still hold.
United Nations Climate Change
The Paris Agreement was a breakthrough in global climate talks, but nations now face major hurdles to meeting long-term emissions goals – and maintaining global support for the deal.
A time-lapse image showing the plane flying across a gymnasium.
Steven Barrett, MIT
Ionic winds – charged particles flowing through the air – can move airplanes using only electricity; no propellers or jet engines needed. The scholar who led the project explains how it works.
Without rapid and dramatic changes, the world will face a higher risk of extreme weather and other effects of climate change.
AP Photo/Mike Groll
The UN's panel on climate change said that technologies to remove CO2 will be necessary to limit global temperature rise to only 1.5 degrees Celsius. But these techniques are largely unproven.
Prototype vehicle built with 3D printing – but is it green?
Tim Gutowski
More students must acquire IT skills in order to secure jobs with upward mobility, according to a researcher who developed an index that shows a dramatic growth in 'IT intensive' jobs.
Many associate entrepreneurship with youth – like Mark Zuckerberg, who famously started Facebook as a student at Harvard.
AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File