Opportunities Abroad

BU Undergraduate Academic Enhancement Fund

The Undergraduate Academic Enhancement Fund is designed to support CAS students in the pursuit of academic interests, endeavors and achievements outside the classroom such as conference fees and materials for academic projects, presentations, and events. Individuals or groups are welcome to apply for awards ranging from $400-600. Applications accepted on a rolling basis.

Eligibility: Open to BU CAS undergraduate students.

BU Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP)

UROP’s mission is to nurture curiosity, to capture imagination, and to cultivate relationships between faculty and students beyond the classroom to shape independent, innovative, and collaborative leaders. Faculty mentors serve as guides, coaches, and facilitators; student researchers hone critical skills while learning the language of their chosen discipline. Get involved in faculty-mentored research or internships, scholarships, and more.

Eligibility: Open to all full-time undergraduate BU students.

Boren Scholars

Boren Awards fund the intensive study of language and culture abroad by US undergraduate students (Boren Scholars) or graduate students (Boren Fellows). All eligible applicants have the option to either apply for a Regional Flagship Language Initiative or select/design their own study program. The African Flagship Languages Initiative (AFLI) offers Boren Scholars the opportunity for the study of Akan/Twi, French, Swahili, Wolof, or Zulu.

Eligibility: Open to US citizens. View website for full details.

Critical Language Scholarship (CLS)

The Critical Language Scholarship Program is a summer study abroad opportunity for American college and university students to learn languages essential to America’s engagement with the world. Students of diverse disciplines and majors are encouraged to apply. Participants are expected to continue their language study beyond the scholarship period, and later apply their critical language skills in their future professional careers. CLS supports study of Arabic and Swahili, among other languages.

Eligibility: Open to US citizens or US nationals enrolled in an accredited US undergraduate or graduate degree-granting program. View website for full details.

Fulbright Program

Led by the US government in partnership with more than 160 countries worldwide, the Fulbright Program offers international educational and cultural exchange programs for passionate and accomplished students, scholars, artists, teachers, and professionals of all backgrounds to study, teach, or pursue important research and professional projects.

The US Student Program offers fellowships for graduating college seniors, graduate students, young professionals and artists to study, conduct research, and/or teach English abroad. The ETA Program places recent college graduates and young professionals as English teaching assistants in primary and secondary schools or universities overseas, improving foreign students’ English language abilities and knowledge of the United States while increasing the U.S. student’s own language skills and knowledge of the host country.

Additional grant programs are also available, including for international students and faculty to study or teach in the US.

Eligibility: For programs outside the US, applicants must be US citizens.

Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship

The US Department of State’s Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship is a grant program that enables students of limited financial means to study or intern abroad, thereby gaining skills critical to our national security and economic competitiveness.

Eligibility: US citizen undergraduate students who are receiving Federal Grant Funding at a 2- or 4-year college or university.

Global Health Corps Fellowship Program

Through a highly selective process, Global Health Corps recruits and places young professionals to serve for 13 months in high impact roles on the front lines of global health. Currently, GHC places fellows in Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zambia. The Fellowship Program is a catalyst for rising leaders that provides access to frontline work experience, bespoke leadership training, resources to learn and amplify impact, raising voices for change, and integrating into GHC’s collective leadership community.

Eligibility: Eligibility has changed during the Covid-19 pandemic. Check GHC website for up-to-date details.

Princeton in Africa

Princeton in Africa helps future leaders develop lifelong connections to the people and nations of Africa. It offers highly selective yearlong fellowships to recent college graduates with organizations across the African continent; enables Fellows, through their work, to make significant contributions to Africa’s well-being; and encourages Fellows to cultivate meaningful relationships with communities in Africa and with one another.

Eligibility: Open to young professionals and graduating seniors who are or will be graduates of an accredited US university.

Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship Program

The U.S. Department of State’s Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship is a grant program that enables students of limited financial means to study or intern abroad, thereby gaining skills critical to our national security and economic competitiveness.

Eligibility: open to U.S. citizen undergraduate students who are receiving Federal Pell Grant funding at a two-year or four-year college or university to participate in study and intern abroad programs worldwide.

School for International Training

The School for International Training (SIT) offers a number of very good programs in Africa. These are theme-based programs that look at a variety of social, economic, and political issues. Currently, SIT has semester-based programs in Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Morocco, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia, and Uganda. SIT offers summer study in Madagascar, Morocco, South Africa, and Uganda/Rwanda.

Eligibility: open to all citizen undergraduate and graduate students to participate in study and intern abroad programs worldwide.

BU Center for the Humanities Graduate Dissertation Fellowships

Graduate Dissertation Fellowships in pay a stipend for one semester’s residence at the BU Center for the Humanities. The Graduate Dissertation Fellowship is intended to be the final stage of each fellow’s graduate work at BU, and fellows should not continue their graduate student affiliation with their departments in the year after their award. GDFs are expected to focus exclusively on their dissertation work during their fellowship semester and not engage in additional employment while holding this fellowship.

Eligibility: BU PhD student nominated by eligible department or program who will defend dissertation by end of August of the fellowship year and who will be in the Boston area during the fellowship.

BU Graduate Research Abroad Fellowships (GRAF)

The Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, using funds from alumni gifts, has established a fellowship program, Graduate Research Abroad Fellowships, to support foreign-based research by doctoral students whose field-based or archival research requires an extended period of residence in another country or countries. This program is primarily intended for students in the Humanities and the Social Sciences, where the opportunity to conduct foreign research is often crucial and where sources of funds are limited, but students from all Arts & Sciences disciplines will be eligible for consideration.  GRAF awards may not be used for foreign-based study or training such as acquiring language skills, or for attending professional conferences.

There are two kinds of Graduate Research Abroad Fellowships:

• The Short-term GRAF supports travel and living costs during a period of study abroad up to, but not exceeding, 3 full months. For trips taken during the academic year when students will normally be supported by another fellowship, up to $4,000 in travel costs is provided. For trips during the summer (late May through August) a fellowship provides up to $6,000.
• The Long-term GRAF enables a student to spend an extended period (4 or more months/at least a full semester) of foreign-based field or archival research. It provides up to $15,000 to cover living, travel, and research expenses.  A Long-term GRAF also provides Continuing Study Fees and the cost of participation in the basic BU student health plan for the time the student is abroad. Receipt of a Long-term GRAF has important implications for the student’s five-year fellowship package. See the link for details.

Boren Fellows

Boren Awards fund the intensive study of language and culture abroad by US undergraduate students (Boren Scholars) or graduate students (Boren Fellows). All eligible applicants have the option to either apply for a Regional Flagship Language Initiative or select/design their own study program. Boren Fellows have additional guidelines for self-designed research, internship, and study programs. The African Flagship Languages Initiative (AFLI) offers Boren Fellows the opportunity for the study of Akan/Twi, French, Swahili, Wolof, or Zulu.

Eligibility: Open to US citizens. View website for full details.

Critical Language Scholarship (CLS)

The Critical Language Scholarship Program is a summer study abroad opportunity for American college and university students to learn languages essential to America’s engagement with the world. Students of diverse disciplines and majors are encouraged to apply. Participants are expected to continue their language study beyond the scholarship period, and later apply their critical language skills in their future professional careers. CLS supports study of Arabic and Swahili, among other languages.

Eligibility: Open to US citizens or nationals enrolled in an accredited US undergraduate or graduate degree-granting program. View website for full details.

Fulbright Program

Led by the US government in partnership with more than 160 countries worldwide, the Fulbright Program offers international educational and cultural exchange programs for passionate and accomplished students, scholars, artists, teachers, and professionals of all backgrounds to study, teach, or pursue important research and professional projects.

The US Student Program offers fellowships for graduating college seniors, graduate students, young professionals and artists to study, conduct research, and/or teach English abroad.

Additional grant programs are also available, including for international students and faculty to study or teach in the US.

Eligibility: For programs outside the US, applicants must be US citizens.

Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA)

This program provides grants to colleges and universities to fund individual doctoral students who conduct research in other countries, in modern foreign languages and area studies for periods of six to 12 months. Projects deepen research knowledge on and help the nation develop capability in areas of the world not generally included in U.S. curricula. Projects focusing on Western Europe are not supported.

Eligibility: US citizen, national, or permanent resident who is a graduate student at a US higher education institution.

Lewis and Clark Fund for Exploration and Field Research

The Lewis and Clark Fund encourages exploratory field studies for the collection of specimens and data and to provide the imaginative stimulus that accompanies direct observation. Applications are invited from disciplines with a large dependence on field studies, such as archaeology, anthropology, biology, ecology, geography, geology, linguistics, paleontology, and population genetics, but grants will not be restricted to these fields.

Eligibility: Doctoral students who are US citizens or residents, or international applicants based at a US institution or who plan to carry out their work in the US.

SSRC International Dissertation Research Fellowship (IDRF)

From the Social Science Research Council, the Mellon International Dissertation Research Fellowship (IDRF) offers six to twelve months of support to graduate students in the humanities and humanistic social sciences who are enrolled in PhD programs in the United States and conducting dissertation research about US Indigenous or non-US cultures and societies. The IDRF program especially welcomes applications from underrepresented institutions. Sixty fellowships are awarded annually. Fellowship amounts vary depending on the research plan, with a per-fellowship average of $23,000. The fellowship includes participation in an SSRC-funded interdisciplinary workshop upon the completion of IDRF-funded research.

Eligibility: Graduate students enrolled in US PhD programs (regardless of citizenship) in humanities and humanistic social sciences.

Wenner-Gren Foundation Dissertation Fieldwork Grants

Dissertation Fieldwork Grants are awarded to aid doctoral or thesis research. The program contributes to the Foundation’s overall mission to support basic research in anthropology and to ensure that the discipline continues to be a source of vibrant and significant work that furthers our understanding of humanity’s cultural and biological origins, development, and variation. The Foundation supports research that demonstrates a clear link to anthropological theory and debates, and promises to make a solid contribution to advancing these ideas. There is no preference for any methodology, research location, or subfield. The Foundation particularly welcomes proposals that employ a comparative perspective, can generate innovative approaches or ideas, and/or integrate two or more subfields.

Eligibility: Students (of any nationality) enrolled in a doctoral program.

School for International Training

The School for International Training (SIT) offers a number of very good programs in Africa. These are theme-based programs that look at a variety of social, economic, and political issues. Currently, SIT has semester-based programs in Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Morocco, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia, and Uganda. SIT offers summer study in Madagascar, Morocco, South Africa, and Uganda/Rwanda.

Eligibility: open to all citizen undergraduate and graduate students to participate in study and intern abroad programs worldwide.

iNerd

iNERDE is a social enterprise with a plan for radical development in Africa. Our STEM Summer Camps teach African youth problem-solving, innovation, entrepreneurship, integrity, self-confidence, teamwork and, of course, the STEM skills needed to succeed in the modern world.

SAHA Global

Saha Global (formerly known as Community Water Solutions) empowers women in rural communities to solve their village’s need for clean water and electricity by providing business opportunities. How do we do it? We bring leaders from around the world to Ghana through our Global Leadership Program where they train local women to launch profitable social enterprises. All of the revenue from these businesses stays in the community and is managed by the women entrepreneurs.