Prior to the summit, participants will need to apply to be considered to attend the summit. The application identifies general research interests and facility availability for international collaboration. The organizing committee will choose the participants from the applicant pool. Approximately 50% (50-60) of the participants will be Associate Professors (or equivalent) and 10% (10-20) will be Full Professors (or equivalent), however, there will be participants [~25% (24-32)] who are graduate students, post doctoral fellows, and Assistant Professors (or equivalent). Additionally, some industry participants will attend the summit. The reason for the emphasis on the Associate Professors is that international recognition of research contribution is a requirement for promotion to Full Professor at many institutions. Also, the Associate Professor level faculty are more likely to have established a research group and are in a good position to fully participate in international collaborations. The Full Professor participants who will be chosen will have successfully conducted research that includes an international collaboration. Their experiences and opinions will be essential in the discussion of how to more effectively internationalize engineering research and education.

Participants will be chosen according to geographic location, rank, and research topic diversity and according to the criteria about experience that are stated above. Preference in selection would be given to assistant and associate professors who have previously demonstrated low levels of international participation and would be more likely to benefit from the summit and other proposed activities. Because Full professors will help mentor junior faculty, Full professors selected would be expected to present higher levels of experience as discussed above. The applications will be evaluated by the organizing committee based on their level of prior experience with international research collaboration and their response to the application question where they are asked to "describe briefly the ways in which participation in this summit could be useful for you in a) forming international research networks/collaborations and b) advancing your academic career."

The females who are chosen to attend the summit will be required to submit a short research outline for two proposals that they are thinking of developing before the summit begins. The short outline will identify facilities and/or expertise that research faculty need to complement their effort. Approximately, three months before the summit, the participants will be notified of their acceptance or denial to the summit (by March 16, 2009). NSF has provided funds for to cover the conference costs and hotel/travel costs (up to $2500) for 50 US participants. Thanks to the National Science Foundation and corporate sponsorships, the conference fee will be waived for all academic participants.