American Council on Education (ACE): the future of international exchanges
International exchanges have allowed hundreds of thousands of passionate students, scholars, teachers, and professionals with different backgrounds and parts of the world to study, teach, exchange ideas, work on projects and contribute to finding solutions to complex global challenges.
The year of the pandemic has disrupted the mobility programmes and led to reinventing the projects and bringing new ideas and ways to continue the programmes. Many countries now start looking at the future of exchanges as we are hopefully approaching a phase of recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.
In the USA, American Council on Education (ACE) prepared webinars that have examined the future of international exchanges with regards to scholars programs like Fulbright, student programs, and professional exchanges.
The 3 webinars, presented in cooperation with the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, a German political foundation, have seen panels of international exchange experts and programme participants discussing the post-pandemic impact of the programmes, different exchange initiatives and relationships with the European Union and other countries, range of issues such as health and safety and the impact of technology.
The dates for the sessions of ACE-Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Webinar: Post–COVID-19 International Exchanges: The Future of Scholars Programs have been the 1st, 15th and 22nd April.
The Fulbright Program has been talked about during the first webinar. Since its birth in 1946, the government-funded exchange initiative has become an opportunity for students, academics, teachers to get involved in projects that connect them with scholars and students in other countries, allowing the exchange of knowledge, ideas and working on research contributing to finding solutions to global problems.
The program operates in more than 160 countries worldwide and promotes mutual understanding between people in the US and abroad through education. It provides grants to both incoming and outgoing students and professionals.
Programmes like this and international exchanges will be as important as ever in the post-pandemic world.
