Beginning in 2002, a number of graduate programs which focus on technology, management and public policy created a "graduate consortium" that brings together faculty and advanced students from each program at the beginning of each summer. These meetings are built around the interdisciplinary work being conducted by graduate students who give research presentations (either platform talks or posters), which provides an opportunity to get feedback from faculty and their fellow students. The objective of the meeting is to help students build a sense of global community, to network and develop a better sense of where their work fits in the broader community of scholarship, and to learn about how programs at other institutions are structured and what they are doing.