The Trans-Atlantic Science Student Exchange Program

 was conceived largely through the efforts of Prof. Nigel Rogers of the University of Lancaster, England and various study abroad departments at U.S. Universities. The purpose was to expand the European science student exchange programs to the United States. These efforts bore fruit with the funding of a grant from the U.S. Department of Education in 1993 to a consortium of U.S. Universities, led by the project director, Prof. Tomas Baer of the University of North Carolina. A major effort during the first year of this grant was the recruitment of faculty advisors, who had an interest in study abroad. Meetings with European and American chemistry faculties and directors of the study abroad offices led to the formal agreement, which culminated in the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding ( MoU).

The first students were sent abroad in 1994. Twenty U.S. students from UNC, the University of Texas-Austin, Texas A&M, Franklin and Marshall, and Michigan State University attended European universities in Lancaster (England), Liege, Grenoble, San Sebastian, Bilbao, Jena, Glasgow (Strathclyde), and Dublin. In exchange about twenty EU students studied for the year at the various participating U.S. Universities.