Independent Models
Harkness Fellowship in Healthcare Policy
Each year the Commonwealth Fund, New York, supports ten Harkness fellows to study for one year in the USA. The competition is open to the UK, Australia and New Zealand. In the main, these are postdoctoral fellowships and focus on any aspect of healthcare policy. They provide a unique opportunity for promising health policy researchers and practitioners (eg nurses, physicians, health services managers) who are early in their career to spend four to 12 months in the USA conducting a policy-oriented research project and working with leading US health policy experts.
Fellows must demonstrate a strong interest in health policy issues and propose a well-designed research study that falls within the scope of the Fund’s national program areas. These are: improving healthcare services; improving the health of minorities; advancing the well-being of elderly people; and developing the capacities of children and young people. Studies that include comparisons between the USA and the applicant’s home country are encouraged.
The Fund provides extensive support to successful fellows to help them develop and shape their research proposals to fit the US context. Through its extensive network of contacts, the Fund helps identify and place each fellow with a mentor who is an expert in the area to be studied. Fellows are also required to identify a home country mentor, who will liaise with the US mentor and supervise any cross-national comparisons that are to be conducted as part of the study.
Each fellowship provides up to US$75,000 in support, which includes round trip airfare to the USA, a monthly stipend, support towards any portion of the study conducted in the home country, project-related travel and other research expenses, tuition for related academic courses , and health insurance. In addition, a family supplement is available to fellows accompanied by a spouse and/or children.
Florence Nightingale Foundation Travel Scholarship
The Florence Nightingale Travel Scholarship supports a number of nurses to travel to other countries. These scholarships are prestigious and have resulted in the exchange of ideas and practices between nurses across the world. They are available to all British and Commonwealth nurses. They are awarded for projects connected with the applicant’s field of work and which will benefit their patients/ clients and the profession more widely.
Candidates should have at least two years’ professional experience subsequent to registration. Applications from those nurses who are at the developmental stage of their career are particularly welcome. In particular, doctoral students can use the Scholarship to visit a subject or methodology expert in another country.
Fulbright Scholars Program
The US senator J.William Fulbright was so devastated by the destruction he saw during the Second World War, that he came to believe that wars could be enabled by closer communication to produce better and clearer ‘mutual understandings’ between the countries of the world. As a result Senator Fulbright initiated the Fulbright Program, sponsored by the US Department of State and the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs; Similar entities provide Fulbright support in countries around the world.
The Fulbright stands as a vital link between academic, professional and personal (relationships) between 144 countries throughout the world. The Fulbright program has so far supported more than 200,000 persons in its more than half a century of existence. It has come to be recognized as a pre-eminent academic vehicle for international understanding and joint international initiatives. Upon initial review, Fulbright programs appear very complex, in that they are multiple and variable.
With greater understanding, however, it becomes clear that this complexity has led to a flexibility that makes possible the overall success of the program. Fulbright programs have an underlying stability of structure, although various aspects of the programs are modified yearly to meet the changing characteristics of both the applicants as well as the Fulbright goals.
The statement that the Fulbright program ‘supports outstanding graduate students, researchers, and established leaders of professional, academic, and artistic excellence’, identifies the bifurcation of the award structure into awards to promising students as well as awards to established academics. The awards are further divided in that support from both a home and host academic institution is required. This requirement bespeaks the necessity of designing a plan of work for the Fulbright effort that meets the goals at both institutions.
Although a Fulbright catalog of possible host institutions is available that advertises desired areas of work, the absence of an institution from this list should not deter applicants. Host institutions not listed in this catalog are often sought out by applicants using advice of colleagues as to the excellence of the work being done in the area of the applicant’s interest.
The excellence of the work plus the willingness of a principal at a host institution to assist in both designing the Fulbright plan as well as providing the necessary letters of support and other documentation for the Fulbright application is of the greatest importance. An additional feature of Fulbright programs is a general willingness on the part of various Fulbright commissions throughout the world to consider important but unrecognized and thus non-described types of activity someone might wish to pursue via Fulbright support.
Host institutions and the Fulbright review committee are also willing to accept plans of varying lengths of time, if both the host and home schools are agreeable. Such characteristics of Fulbright support are wonderful as well as somewhat confusing to a new applicant. As with any vital organization, however, this ‘confusion quotient’ is in a sense the price one must pay if one wishes to participate.
For these reasons, anyone wishing to undertake a project supported by Fulbright must not only consult current descriptions of available programs, but it is also wise to telephone or otherwise personally interact with the person identified within Fulbright materials as representing a particular program.
This personal contact should be used not only to clarify specific questions, but also to check current Fulbright thinking regarding continuing support for a given mechanism. Information regarding current levels of financial support for specific programs is usually best accessed in this way.
Support varies from country to country but generally includes travel funds and some basic maintenance allowance. It is useful to access Fulbright information for one’s home country as well as that for the country in which Fulbright activities might be carried out.
The web address www.cies.org (Council for the International Exchange of Scholars) provides general information on current programs available, likewise the address www.Fulbright.org contains additional information. The major US Fulbright programs available as of November, 2003 that can be downloaded directly from the CIES website, are as follows:
- Traditional Fulbright Scholar Program: the traditional Fulbright Scholar Program sends 800 US faculty and professionals abroad to 140 countries each year for two months to an academic year. Grantees lectures and conducts research in a wide variety of academic and professional fields.
- Fulbright Distinguished Chairs Program: the Fulbright Distinguished Chairs Program awards are among the most prestigious appointments in the Fulbright Scholar Program. Most awards are in Western Europe, although a few are available in Canada and Russia.
- Fulbright Senior Specialists Program: the Fulbright Senior Specialists Program provides short-term Fulbright grants of two to six weeks. Activities offer US faculty and professionals opportunities to collaborate on curriculum and faculty development, institutional planning and a variety of other activities.
- Fulbright New Century Scholars Program: 30 top academics and professionals collaborate for a year on a topic of global significance. For 2002–2003, the research theme was ‘Addressing sectarian, ethnic and cultural conflict within and across national borders’.
- Fulbright Alumni Initiatives Awards Program: this program offers small institutional grants to Fulbright alumni to continue or develop projects that will link their home and host institutions.
In addition, those who have been US Fulbright awardees (or ‘ Fulbrighters ‘) are invited to join the Fulbright Association, a membership organization of Fulbright alumni and supporters committed to fostering international awareness and understanding through advocating increased worldwide support for Fulbright exchanges, enriching the Fulbright experience and facilitating lifelong interaction among alumni and current participants.
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