Government Funded Model EU–USA Exchange Programs
Each year the European Union (EU) in Brussels, Belgium, and the United States Department of Education in Washington, USA, fund collaborative projects. Several of these have been and continue to be focused on nursing. Normally, the projects have a three-year lifespan and on the EU side of the project there should be partners in at least three different countries whereas on the US side of the project there should be partners in at least three different states.
At the core of all the projects is student and faculty exchange between the EU and the USA. For example, one of the authors of this topic has been involved in two EU—USA projects. One focuses on nursing care for older people and the partners are: Kalmer University in Sweden, the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland, the University of Padua in Italy, the University of East Tennessee, Hampton College in Virginia and Otterbein University in Ohio.
Each year for three years students and faculty from the US partners spend time (eight weeks) studying in Europe and vice versa. Such exchanges lead to joint publications from a common data set, and further research and educational collaborations. Brussels provides funding for the European partners and Washington funds the US partners. However, the funds are nominal and it is expected that the partner institutions contribute to the cost of the projects.
This is mainly done through releasing and supporting faculty to participate. Because this is public money, both the EU and US funders require regular and often bureaucratic reports on progress. Nevertheless, these programs have been so successful that recently similar programs have been established between the EU and Canada and the EU and South Africa.
National Institute of Cancer Consortia
The National Institute of Cancer (NCI) is a federally funded organization based within the National Institutes of Health at Bethesda in Maryland, USA. Through forming consortia with overseas governments, it opens its courses and wide range of expertise to nurses in other countries. In October 1999 it established an international consortium to promote the most effective preventative and therapeutic strategies for the management of cancer care through:
- Clinical trials training
- Predoctoral fellowships
- Clinical oncology nurse training
- Summer genetics seminars through the National Institute of Nursing Research
- NCI summer curriculum in cancer prevention
The Cancer Nurses Consortium Working Group was established as a subgroup of the main Board, and is a link between NCI, the UK and Ireland. Its purpose was to facilitate and assist in implementing educational opportunities for nurses identified under the consortium. It aimed to:
- promote an understanding of the consortium activities among nurses and encourage participation
- design and assist in implementing agreed-upon education and research programs approved under a memorandum of understanding and to address local cancer strategies when necessary and appropriate • identify and make recommendations for future development needs
- identify obstacles and recommend strategies to overcome them
- provide ‘program content’ for general promotion of consortium activities, including the website and newsletter
- monitor activities in the nursing arena and report on progress to the consortium Board
Under the aegis of the working group two cancer nursing PhD fellowships are available. A core element of these three-year full-time fellowships is that each fellow spends one year at the NCI in Bethesda. Each fellow would receive £25,000 per year plus travel and accommodation expenses. The working group also provides funding for nurses to go to the NCI to attend short courses in clinical trials, ethics and cancer prevention. These short courses are typically 12 weeks in length, and a number of oncology nurses have achieved successful completion.
Membership Model European Academy of Nursing Science
The European Academy of Nursing Science (EANS) was established in 1999 to enhance scholarship and nursing science in Europe. It is an independently organized body composed of individual members who have made significant contributions to the advancement of nursing science in Europe through scholarship and research.
The purpose of the Academy is to sustain a forum of European nurse scientists to develop and promote knowledge in nursing science and to recognize research and scholarly achievement in the pursuit of excellence. The principal activities of the Academy concern the advancement of nursing science through annual meetings of the fellows and honorary fellows of the Academy, and scientific and educational activities through the provision of advice on all matters concerning the development of nursing science in Europe.
A core aspect of the EANS business is the European Network of Doctoral Nursing Programs. This offers the opportunity to add a European dimension to a doctoral research project. The objectives of the program are:
- to provide a common European perspective for doctoral nursing research
- to create a multinational learning environment for doctoral students in nursing
- to enhance the opportunities for doctoral students to study
- to develop a network in a European perspective. This is a three-year programe. The first year incorporates a 10-day intensive course, whereas years 2 and 3 include a one-week course. Readers can gain an overview of the program by studying an outline of the 2002 course taught in Edinburgh ( www.omv.lu.se/bill001/eans ).
International Network of Doctoral Education in Nursing
( http://www.umich.edu/~inden )
The International Network for Doctoral Education in Nursing (INDEN) aims to advance and promote high quality doctoral education in nursing through national and international collaboration. Its goal is to become a major facilitator worldwide for achieving exchange of faculty and students across countries and programs.
There are many avenues through which this goal can be pursued and the initial step has been to organize doctoral student seminars in different parts of the world through collaboration with international institutions. For the first seminar of this type, INDEN collaborated with the universities of Melbourne, Australia, and Michigan, USA, to offer a one-week seminar on the campus of the University of Melbourne, with both institutions providing faculty experts.
The seminar was announced to all INDEN members, along with guidelines for submission of applications. A selection committee reviewed the applicants and 12 students representing seven countries were admitted to the program. The initial focus of the seminar was on children and adolescents. It was soon realized that this was a very narrow topic, and the interests of applicant students were broader than the desire to learn about a particular clinical area.
Students were interested in meeting colleagues from different countries, learning about how doctoral education was organized and taught, how to move through different phases of doctoral study, learn about how faculty go about developing a program of research throughout their careers, and to discuss methodological options for their dissertation.
The second international student seminar was also a collaborative effort—between INDEN and an existing consortium of four international universities (see the Four Country Project later in this topic in later Read More links). This seminar was hosted by the Department of Nursing at Lund University, Sweden, in 2003. INDEN was invited to send four students to join the faculty/student seminar.
Each institution had several faculty and student members. Both doctoral students and faculty presented their research work in the area of chronic illness, followed by in-depth discussion on theoretical, methodological and ethical issues related to the presentation. The students found these to be very enriching and enlightening.
The students were pursuing diverse areas of research with the larger theme of chronic illness, and proposing different methodological approaches (examples of chronic conditions that were considered are depression, cognitive dysfunctions among the elderly, and cardiac problems). The students prepared a collective paper for the INDEN electronic Newsletter, in which they summarized the multiple ways in which the experience was enriching for them.
These included broadening their perspectives on chronic illness and the issues to be considered in research; providing an opportunity to network and exchange ideas with other doctoral students; exploring the potential for international collaborative research programs which would assist in developing culturally sensitive nursing practice; and the enhancement of critical thinking and academic discourse.
This enabled the students to receive input from individuals from different parts of the world, providing them with new ways of looking at issues. They felt their experienced support and respect for their work and an increased awareness about various considerations that researchers must pay attention to when selecting a particular methodological approach.
INDEN expects to build on this beginning and to continue collaborating with institutions in these efforts. Another focus that is emerging, and related to this initiative for doctoral students, is the facilitation of faculty exchange opportunities. Preliminary and foundational work is necessary before this initiative can get under way. A database needs to be created on what various institutions are offering by way of faculty expertise and collaborative research.
The database needs to include institutional profile, faculty profiles and student profiles. A system needs to be put in place to facilitate matching existing opportunities with individual needs, and assisting with a search for resources to bring about the exchange (this effort is now under way by INDEN). Some of this has begun to happen. Faculty from some countries are seeking to make direct contacts with institutions and published scholars to spend their sabbatical periods collaborating on research.
These faculty members are typically in mid-career, seeking to recharge themselves with new ideas and interactions with established scholars or begin new areas of research. They tend to be supported by their own institutions. A number of research-intensive universities in the USA are host to this type of faculty exchange programs. Informal evaluations in several settings reveal that both parties find this enriching, leading to collaborative research in the years to come.
Another example of student exchange that has emerged has been stimulated by the needs in some countries and is referred to as the ‘sandwich’ program . Some countries that are newly developing doctoral education find that students are enriched by spending a year overseas in the middle of their study to engage in a variety of supervised activities on a research-intensive campus.
This is felt to be less costly than sending students overseas for their entire study period. Some students spend the year developing their dissertation proposals; some engage in research with faculty and some do combinations of the two activities. Alternatively, if a student has not been able to engage in this type of international study during their doctorate, their employer sends them overseas for one year of post-doctorate study focusing exclusively on research, prior to beginning their formal employment as faculty members.
Read More
https://nurseseducator.com/models-of-international-exchange-for-doctoral-students-and-faculty/