- Supporting French-American Cultural Exchange in Education and the Arts
Transitioning to Virtual Exchange
Special Announcement
The Ambassador of France to the United States, Philippe Etienne, congratulates the selected projects.
About the Initiative
Transitioning to Virtual Exchange Covid-19 Relief Fund
The Transitioning to Virtual Exchange Covid-19 Relief Fund launched by the FACE Foundation in collaboration with the French Embassy in the U.S. and the U.S. Embassy in France aims at supporting French-American collaborations and preparing for the post-pandemic when international travel resumes. Different needs and opportunities have been identified, ranging from a bottom-up call for proposal to structural trainings facilitating the creation of high impact initiatives.
International education is an area particularly impacted by the global health crisis. Students had to interrupt ongoing travel to return home in March, all programs for the spring and summer terms were cancelled. The same applies to student exchange programs in fall 2020. As the focus necessarily swifts towards domestic politics, international collaboration needs to be redesigned and adapted to the ongoing pandemic and its aftermath.
In response to the call for applications, forty-four proposals were initially submitted. The 16 selected projects activate a diverse roster of institutions, ranging from community colleges to top-level research universities in the U.S. to specialized technological institutes and major engineering and business schools in France. Students benefiting from the initiatives are located across the U.S. and France, from Texas, Wyoming, and California to Toulouse, Strasbourg, and French Guiana. Thanks to the new cross-cultural educational initiatives, the universities will offer creative new ways to collaborate at a time when travel is restricted, and study abroad is impossible.
Join a LinkedIn Group dedicated to finding partners for virtual exchange. You can post your search and other members of the group can respond to you directly. The higher education attachés of the French Embassy in the U.S. will try to assist you as well.
Contact
Katrin Gebhard
Higher Education Attaché
Katrin.Gebhard@frenchculture.org