About | ESD Research Programs

ESD initiates research focused on science and technology issues of national and international importance. As a vital part of engineering systems education, ESD partners with industry and governments to address realistic and important problems. Examples of current research initiatives connected with ESD include:

Research Initiatives:

Lean Advancement Initiative
The Lean Advancement Initiative (LAI) and its Educational Network (EdNet) is a membership-based consortium focused on lean enterprise transformation. LAI provides a neutral forum for stakeholders from industry, government, and academia to learn about LAI’s latest research findings, products, and tools and share lessons learned and best practices.

Program on Emerging Technologies (PoET)
The Program on Emerging Technologies at MIT seeks to improve responses to emerging technologies by engaging early and explicitly with the pervasive uncertainty that is often under-recognized in technology assessment exercises. PoET is designed to bring together engineering and social science faculty as well as students.

Systems Engineering Advancement Research Initiative
SEAri brings together a set of sponsored research projects and a consortium of systems engineering leaders from industry, government, and academia, aiming to advance the theories, methods, and effective practice of systems engineering applied to complex socio-technical systems through collaborative research.

International Programs:

The Center for Latin-American Logistics Innovation
Founded in 2008, the Center for Latin-American Logistics Innovation (CLI) is the leader in education and research in transportation, logistics, and supply chain in Latin America. Located in Colombia, CLI was created in 2008 through LOGyCA’s partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Transportation & Logistics. CLI is the focal point of a network of Latin American universities engaged in supply chain management education and research. Current projects center of critical infrastructure, urban transportation, and operational risk management—balancing a global perspective with Latin-American needs. Less than six months after its founding, the CLI was designated by the Colombian government as its Logistics Center of Excellence.

Masdar Institute of Science and Technology
The Masdar Institute is a private, not-for-profit, independent, research-driven institute developed with the support and cooperation of MIT. The Masdar Institute is the centerpiece of the Masdar Initiative, a landmark program announced in April 2006 by the government of Abu Dhabi to establish a new economic sector dedicated to alternative and sustainable energy.

MIT Portugal Program
The MIT Portugal Program is a strategic investment in people, knowledge, and ideas designed to encourage enhanced collaborative programs in research and education among Portuguese universities and institutions, to perform basic research and education, and to strengthen the country's knowledge base. The Program’s focus areas include engineering design and advanced manufacturing; transportation systems; energy systems; bio-engineering systems; and engineering systems.

MIT-Zaragoza International Logistics Program
Established by CTL in 2003 with the University of Zaragoza, the government of Aragón, industry partners, and the PLAZA Logistics Park in Zaragoza, Spain, the MIT-Zaragoza International Logistics Program is a unique research and education partnership that brings together the supply chain interests of academia, industry and government. This partnership allows researchers from MIT and the Zaragoza Logistics Center (ZLC) to experiment with new logistics processes, concepts and technologies and to move research findings quickly into practice. In addition, students from around the world develop business leadership skills by participating in graduate and executive education (in English) at MIT-Zaragoza.

Labs and Centers:

AgeLab
AgeLab’s research seeks to build and translate knowledge into tools, technologies, and services that empower individuals and their families to improve their quality of life and the quality of caregiving. AgeLab works in multiple domains including transportation, housing, health, communications, work and retirement, and services and decision-making around aging and caregiving.

Center for Biomedical Innovation (CBI)
The Center for Biomedical Innovation's mission is to improve global health by overcoming obstacles to the development and implementation of biomedical innovation. CBI provides a safe haven for collaborative research among industry, academia, and government, and draws on the expertise of MIT’s schools of engineering, science, and management, as well as the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST). CBI research focuses on technical, policy, and economic issues related to drug safety, biomanufacturing, and emerging trends in pharmaceutical research and development.

Center for Engineering Systems Fundamentals
ESD’s Center for Engineering Systems Fundamentals was founded in September 2005 to conduct research on the fundamentals and cross-cutting issues in engineering systems. CESF is engaged in several areas, including developing seminars and other mechanisms to discuss engineering systems fundamentals; collaborating with faculty to bring in resources for CESF and shape its relationships with ESD’s other research centers; sponsoring an engineering systems book series and a biannual international symposium on engineering systems fundamentals; and overseeing the Learning International Networks Consortium (LINC). A key LINC initiative is BLOSSOMS (Blended Learning Open Source Science or Math Studies).

Center for Technology, Policy, and Industrial Development
The Center for Technology, Policy, and Industrial Development (CTPID), a multi-industry research enterprise, applies intellectual tools from engineering, management, and the social sciences to critical industry issues. CTPID's research programs investigate sustainable global solutions to challenges in aerospace, automotive production and transportation, Internet technology and policy, materials systems, and technology and law. Over 80 corporations and government agencies support CTPID research.

Center for Transportation and Logistics
The MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics is the world's leading center for research in supply chain management and logistics. The Center’s world-renowned research programs span every aspect of supply chain management and directly involve over 75 faculty and research staff from a wide range of academic disciplines, as well as researchers in various affiliate organizations around the world.

Complex Systems Research Laboratory
Increasing complexity and coupling as well as the introduction of new digital technology are introducing new challenges for development and operations. The Complex Systems Research Lab designs system modeling, analysis, and visualization theory and tools to assist in the design and operation of safer systems with greater capability. To accomplish these goals, the lab applies a system’s approach to engineering that includes building technical foundations and knowledge and integrating these with the organizational, political, and cultural aspects of system construction and operation.

CSRL domains include most complex socio-technical systems such as aerospace, healthcare, the process industry, transportation, energy, and food safety. Current research projects include accident modeling and design for safety; model-based system and software engineering; reusable, component-based system architectures; interactive visualization; human-centered system design; and risk analysis in engineering and project management.

Prof. Nancy Leveson is director of CSRL.

Humans and Automation Lab (HAL)
Research in the Humans and Automation Lab focuses on the multifaceted interactions of human and computer decision-making in complex sociotechnical systems. With the explosion of automated technology, the need for humans as supervisors of complex automatic control systems has replaced the need for humans in direct manual control.