Center for International Business Education and Research


Alan M. Rugman
1309 East Tenth Street, Room 738; IUB
(812) 855-1716
(812) 855-9006 FAX

The Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER) works to enhance understanding of key international concepts, issues, practices, languages, and environments; all with the goal of increasing U.S. business competitiveness within today's global economic arena.

The CIBER program was created under the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988 to increase and promote the nation's capacity for international understanding and economic enterprise. Administered by the U.S. Department of Education under Title VI, Part B of the Higher Education Act of 1965, the CIBER program has successfully linked the manpower and information needs of U.S. business with the international education, foreign language training, and research capacities of institutions of higher education. The Indiana University CIBER is one of 30 CIBERs located at major universities nationwide.

The U.S. Congress mandated a wide array of services for which the nations's CIBERs are responsible. Thus, in carrying out its mandates, the CIBER at Indiana University:

1) serves as a national resource for innovative teaching techniques, strategies, and methodologies emphasizing the international context in which business is transacted;

2) provides foreign language instruction and also education in the social, cultural, and political environments of countries with and in which the U.S. does business;

3) supports research on key issues and practices affecting international business, generating new knowledge to be transferred into the classroom and, in its most applied form, to the business practitioner;

4) works continuously to encourage the internationalization of students, at IU and beyond, by supporting international curriculum development, study abroad opportunities, foreign language training, participation in internationally-oriented programs such as case competitions, and other such activities;

5) actively serves the business community, offering programs and providing research designed to meet the international training needs of such businesses; and

6) assists faculty, students, and institutions of higher education with fewer resources and less experience in their own internationalization efforts.

As a regional and national resource center, CIBER plays a pivotal role in strengthening the ability of U.S. firms to compete successfully in the global marketplace, whether by educating future managers and executives equipped with a rich understanding of the global environment, by continuously developing a new generation of faculty able to deliver that education, through its programs of practical assistance to the business community and economic policymakers, or by providing resources and training at the pre-collegiate level for many who will make up the nation's future workforce.