Applying for Fulbright Funding to Support your Graduate Research

A Fulbright is one of the most recognized and prestigious awards available to scholars.  Instituted after World War II, the Fulbright award is designed to support an extended stay overseas and there are many different types of Fulbright awards available to students and scholars throughout their careers.  At the graduate student level there are two major Fulbright awards available to graduate students, the Fulbright IIE and the Fulbright Hays.

The Fulbright IIE is funded by the US Department of State and offers three different types of awards that would assist graduate students with achieving their scholarly, artistic or professional goals.  The Fulbright Open Study/Research Grant supports research and study overseas.  Typically, a doctoral or MFA student would apply for an Open Study-Research Grant to support an academic year abroad for research, study or artistic work.  The Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA) Award is to support individuals who would like to spend an academic year abroad teaching English as a second language.  Typically, graduate students pursuing a masters in education would be interested in the Fulbright ETA.  Several other types of Fulbright IIE awards exist; visit the program website to learn more.

To apply for a Fulbright IIE, the applicant must be a US citizen.  The language requirements will vary depending on the country and the work the applicant proposes to do.  If you would like to apply for a Fulbright IIE, you may want to first review the program summary for each participating country to see which programs they participate in and what the language and project requirements may be.

If you are currently a matriculated student and are interested in applying for the Fulbright IIE, you must apply through your university’s FPA (Fulbright Program Adviser).  The FPA for Rutgers graduate students is Assistant Dean Teresa Delcorso-Ellmann.

Fulbright Hays is funded by the US Department of Education and is an area studies grant.  As an area studies award, the Fulbright Hays will support projects that advance our understanding of a country’s history, language, culture, politics, art and culture.  As a language training grant, the Fulbright Hays places a priority on projects in which the applicant can demonstrate that they have undertaken a course of study to acquire the foreign language skills necessary to execute the project successfully.  The Fulbright Hays will support research topics based in most regions of the world but will not support research on topics that have a western European focus.  The Fulbright Hays is open to both US citizens and permanent residents.

If you are interested in learning more about Fulbright opportunities available to graduate students or how to initiate an application, visit our website or make an individual appointment for assistance.