Back in 1990, Metz, France, became the home of the Institute’s first international off-campus instructional site, Georgia Tech-Lorraine, now rebranded as Georgia Tech-Europe. More than 30 years later, Georgia Tech-Europe has exceeded expectations and extended its influence to attract more than 11,000 students from all over the world. This impressive group of scholars have used the world-class education and intercultural experience they received in Metz to develop successful careers on every continent.

As the challenges of the past several years have shown, the gravest threats to humanity — whether medical, environmental, economic, or political — do not respect national borders or cultural differences. The only way we can win is to find ways to work together, forge partnerships, and share solutions. And that’s just what Georgia Tech-Europe has been doing for more than three decades.

From the very beginning, Georgia Tech-Europe has combined innovative academic programming and fruitful collaborations with some of the finest schools, research centers, and industry hubs in Europe and North Africa. Featuring partnerships with more 30 prestigious institutions from France and Spain to Morocco and Tunisia, Georgia Tech-Europe attracts bright scholars from throughout these regions and beyond, including China and India, to join American students from Georgia Tech and other four-year institutions.

The result is, and has always been, a truly global environment where international opportunities and perspectives converge — from Serve-Learn-Sustain’s French Immersion Program and CREATE-X’s multinational, interdisciplinary Startup Lab to Georgia Tech-CNRS IRL 2958, our joint research lab with France’s Centre national de la recherche scientifique. A transatlantic bridge that links cities, nations, and continents in the name of education, research, and innovation, Georgia Tech-Europe is a picture of the Institute’s commitment to Connect Globally, one of the six focus areas in our strategic plan, and a big reason why 56% of our undergraduates have an international experience before they graduate. Together with our other overseas campus in Shenzhen and our centers and partnerships across the world, Georgia Tech-Europe is an essential part of our mission to develop leaders who advance technology and improve the human condition. 

On and off campus, students and faculty alike learn to cross geopolitical and cultural boundaries, mastering the skills they need to become effective problem solvers who can execute global solutions. And thanks to its partnerships, Georgia Tech-Europe has earned a well-deserved reputation for stimulating technological advances as well as economic development, especially though the nonprofit Institut Lafayette, which has been extending Tech’s famed entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem to the other side of the ocean since 2014. 

And so, Georgia Tech-Europe is more vital than ever — not just to the Institute, but to Europe and the future of our world as well. On behalf of everyone here in Atlanta, we wish Georgia Tech-Europe our most heartfelt congratulations on more than 34 beautiful years in France.

Sincerely,

Ángel Cabrera
President, Georgia Institute of Technology