FULBRIGHT REGIONAL NETWORK FOR APPLIED RESEARCH (NEXUS)
Description
The Fulbright Regional Network for Applied Research (NEXUS) Program will bring together a network of junior scholars, professionals and mid-career applied researchers from the United States and other Western Hemisphere nations for a series of three seminar meetings and a Fulbright exchange experience. At its core, the Fulbright NEXUS Program will foster collaborative and multidisciplinary research to address challenging regional issues and produce tangible results.
20 outstanding scholars and practitioners from the U.S. and abroad will be selected as Fulbright NEXUS Scholars to participate in the program through an open competition. Approximately one-third of grantees will be selected from the United States. Approximately two thirds of the grantees will originate from Western Hemisphere countries other than the United States. Program activities will commence in May 2011 and conclude in April 2012.
In order to create a platform for collaborative thinking and analysis, Fulbright NEXUS combines the core Fulbright research exchange experience with a series of three in-person seminar meetings and ongoing virtual communication among the multinational and multidisciplinary participants under the guidance of the Fulbright NEXUS Scholar Leader. NEXUS Scholars will be challenged to move beyond their individual research and to engage in collaborative examination of the program themes. Combining nationalities and disciplines, each team will include 4-5 participants. In addition to the Scholar Leader, each of the NEXUS research teams will select a coordinator to lead their respective groups.
Program themes include Science, Technology and Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Sustainable Energy. Scholar applicants should have particular expertise in these themes and submit research proposals in the following critical areas of engagement:
Science, Technology and Innovation
Projects that:
- Move ideas from laboratories to the marketplace in fields of regional importance, such as food production and food security, climate change and the environment, and emergency preparedness;
- Contribute to the development of sustainable cities, informed by best practices in urban planning, earthquake preparedness, green energy and environmental standards;
- Foster regional and local competitiveness;
- Address poverty eradication and increase quality of life outcomes for all individuals from the region;
- Promote expanded access to education, including in STEM fields at the primary, secondary and post-secondary levels.
Entreprenurship
Initiatives that:
- Foster innovative market solutions to pressing social needs across the region;
- Expand access to working capital for micro-entrepreneurs;
- Link markets to producers and consumers across the supply and distribution chain so that small producers and service providers can participate more effectively in trade;
- Expand credit access to the unbanked through innovative approaches such as utilizing movable assets like collateral and promoting the availability of secured transactions;
- Build upon a continuum of experiences to capitalize on a wide range of entrepreneurial knowledge from micro to mainstream, including social entrepreneurship theories and practices;
- Engage the private sector and civil society to advance labor and environmental standards in business and industry, sharing best practices for such standards and their enforcement;
- Outline how activities can become self-sustainable and replicable over time.
Sustainable Energy
Projects exploring:
- Renewable and sustainable energy (hydro, wind, air, solar);
- Energy poverty and energy security;
- Energy efficiency and environmental security;
- Energy industries as drivers of economic growth;
- Energy independence at regional, national, community and household levels;
- Energy innovation and indigenous sources of energy as means to decrease reliance on fossil fuels and carbon emissions;
- Energy infrastructure and regional integration as related to emergency preparedness (earthquakes, hurricanes, offshore drilling);
- Research, development, deployment and dissemination of cleaner, cheaper and more efficient energy technologies to drive low carbon-economic growth.
Timeline
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2010-11-15U.S. and Visiting Scholar Application Deadline
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2010-11-15Finalists Notified of Select or Non-Select Decisions
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2011-05-08First Group Meeting and Orientation (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
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2010-11-15Mid-Year Group Meeting (Regional Location: TBA)
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2012-06-08Final Group Meeting (Washington, DC)
