Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences has signed a memorandum of understanding with École Normale Supérieure (ENS) in Paris to facilitate academic exchanges and to support collaborative research activities related to environmental issues.

The agreement supports the intentions of Cornell and ENS to form a strategic partner relationship between Cornell's Center for the Environment and the ENS Centre d'Enseignement et de Recherche sur l'Environnement et la Société. The pact will strengthen teaching and research in the environmental field and broaden the international experiences of the faculty and students at both institutions. The four objectives of the agreement are: scholarly exchanges and visits, cooperative research, student exchange and exchange of research materials.

Both centers share the mission of promoting interdisciplinary research in the environmental field and have identified the following as areas that could be pursued by research partners: earth and atmospheric sciences, conservation, geography including regional planning, social sciences and environmental economics, complex environmental systems, hydrology and water resources, biogeochemistry and ecosystems sciences, genomics and genetically modified organisms, environmental informatics, impacts of new materials and nanotechnology, and sustainable environmental systems.

Cornell professors will have the opportunity to give seminar series at ENS, and ENS and Cornell graduate students will form thesis committees with faculty members from both institutions.