Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs

EDUCATIONAL PARTNERSHIPS PROGRAM
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Suggestions for Applying

1) Establish a clear understanding of the requirements of the competition through a careful reading of the Request for Grant proposals (RFGP) and POGI documents. Be sure to substantively address each of the evaluation criteria. Contact a program officer to discuss your ideas and clarify any questions.

2) Choose your partner institution carefully. Faculty members at your institution may have more knowledge of foreign institutions than you realize. Some applicants have had prior contact with good partnership candidates through one of the Fulbright exchange programs or through other educational exchanges. Have your faculty members contact foreign students at your institution to learn about the foreign universities represented by those students, as well as the work environments to which the students will return.

3) Lay as much of the ground work for your relationship as you can before you submit your proposal. If you have any questions as you develop your proposal, feel free to contact us. The public affairs officer at the U.S. Embassy or the staff of the Fulbright Commission in the country in which your prospective partner institution is situated may be able to provide local information and insights as you develop your proposal. When you are overseas, you might attempt to arrange an appointment. Or, you might encourage your foreign partner to try to do so. However, unlike certain other competitions for grants funded by the U.S. government, this program does not require the endorsement or a U.S. Embassy or Mission at the time of application.

4) Clearly define project objectives and the responsibilities of all partnership institutions. In defining your objectives, pay particular attention to the themes described in the Request for Grant Proposals. The exchanges are a means toward meeting objectives, and are not an end in themselves. Your project should strive to achieve specific realistic outcomes. Make sure your objectives are significant, but not unreasonably ambitious. Don't just describe your strengths in your proposal, but also your needs and deficiencies. Be clear about how your project will enable you to address these needs. Relate your institutional needs and objectives to issues in your respective societies.

5) Include community outreach efforts. Plans to involve community groups, NGO's or local businesses often help to extend a project's impact.

6) Pay special attention to budget guidelines. Note that several budget categories, including administrative costs, cannot exceed a certain percentage of the budget request. Some types of expenses, including many forms of salary and honoraria, cannot be paid from grant funds. Please contact us if you have questions about eligible expenses or budget format. Given recent changes in visa policy requiring all applicants for U.S. visas to undergo personal interviews, remember to budget for internal travel and visa application expenses for your participants if they are located outside a city where a U.S. embassy or consulate is located.

7) Don't confuse your objectives with the means for achieving them. Make sure the means for achieving project objectives are feasible and imaginative. Describe the parameters or possible content of courses and other activities. Be sure that the link between the project goals and activities is clear. For example, if you are proposing to develop curriculum, provide background information on relevant courses that already exist and courses which will be targeted for revision, provide titles for proposed new courses and, when possible, indicate who will be responsible for developing those courses at what point in the project. It is important that the reviewers see how all of the proposed pieces fit together. Don't limit yourselves to short visits. Reviewers will be looking for signs promising intensive collaboration based on mutual understanding as required to meet specific objectives.

8) Make sure that you show that your partner understands you and that you understand your partner. Don't rely on the formal letters of commitment to convey that understanding to us. The level of understanding between you and your partner should be apparent in the narrative of the proposal. The application should also reflect broad institutional participation - not just the involvement of the project directors. Name as many participants as possible from both institutions and describe what their proposed role will be.

9) Thoroughly describe the benefits to each institution and for the project as a whole. Institutional linkage programs are international exchange activities. One-way technical assistance projects are not funded under these programs, so choose an institutional partner with the capacity to be of benefit to your institution. Benefits do not necessarily have to be the same for each partner institution, but they should be substantial. Proposals that realistically assess institutional capacities will be better able to explain the need for support. Don't just describe your ability to help your partner, also explain your partner's ability to help you. Explain how the project relates to previous or concurrent projects.

10) Write to audiences of foreign affairs professionals and independent academic and professional reviewers. Your proposal will be reviewed by multi-disciplinary independent panels with relevant thematic or geographic expertise. In addition, it will be reviewed by foreign affairs professionals who may not always have an insider's knowledge of terminology that is peculiar to your academic discipline. Avoid terms that may not be widely understood unless you first explain them and then use them in ways that will make sense to an educated non-professional.

11) Involve an outsider in proposal evaluation. The person does not necessarily have to be an outside professional evaluator. Someone competent in the field and able to offer a fresh and disinterested perspective is a good choice. In developing an evaluation plan, consider how to measure the impact of the project. For example, counting the number of participants exchanged does not measure impact. Assessing their new skills does.

12) Provide project cost-sharing, even if your institution has relatively few resources. Cost-sharing is an indicator of your institution's interest. Indirect costs are eligible for inclusion among other cost-shared items, but may not be the most compelling indication of your interest. The salaries that the universities continue to pay for exchange participants while they are abroad may be counted as cost share. Think creatively about other things to include in this category. In the past, some projects have cost-shared expenses such as: van rental for local transportation, salaries for student interpreters, some of the housing and meal costs for exchange visitors, facility/room rental for workshops or conferences, renovation of space and furnishings for computer labs or libraries.

13) Address diversity issues substantively. Don't just list statistics about minority enrollment or faculty participation. Tell us how your approach to issues of diversity both here and abroad will infuse and strengthen your project. Describe how diversity will be addressed in orientations for participants and how it will be included in courses and course materials that are being developed. Include information on project activities that will expose participants to diversity issues. Define diversity as broadly as possible, to include diversity of geographic regions, socio-economic standing, ages, physical ability, religion, etc., in addition to more traditional definitions addressing race and gender.

14) Consult with your university grants office. Professionals in that office may have valuable expertise and advice to offer.

15) Gain the support of your institution's top administrative people early in the planning process. A university president, dean, or department head can be of considerable assistance throughout the life of the project as you commit resources and build on your initiatives.

16) Don't give up if you don't succeed the first time you try. We do give feedback and we try to make it honest and helpful. Even our unsuccessful applicants learn something from the application process. After receiving the results of the review of your proposal, contact us to request feedback on how the proposal could be strengthened.

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