U.S. Department of State’s IDEAS Microgrant Program

Limit: 1 // Available: 0

N. Alvarez Mexia

The IDEAS grant competition assists U.S. colleges and universities in creating and/or expanding their study abroad programming in support of U.S. foreign policy goals. Building on the work achieved thus far, and the myriad opportunities that have been provided to students, microgrant proposals should seek to build additional capacity in U.S. grantee institutions. Examples may include, but are not limited to, building upon existing partnerships, reaching out to additional student groups, applying successful models to new locations, or creating toolkits for reaching underrepresented students.

Eligibility

To be eligible for consideration, proposals must meet the following criteria:

• The institution must be a current or past IDEAS grantee that has or will have concluded their award activities before September 1, 2024 and is in good standing with World Learning, with all reports and other deliverables up-to-date.
• Proposals must support projects focused primarily on U.S. undergraduate student mobility abroad, although graduate student participation in programs is allowed.
• As with the IDEAS grant, funding may not be used to support direct outbound or inbound student costs. Funds may be used to support U.S. faculty and/or staff travel overseas as well as travel for foreign faculty and/or staff to travel to the United States to support program development, resource development and dissemination, and/or research. Further details about allowable costs can be found in the Grant Competition FAQs.
• Microgrants may support the development of in-person U.S. study abroad programming in countries with a U.S. Department of State Travel Advisory Level 1, 2, or 3. Development of in-person programming in foreign locations with a U.S. Department of State Travel Advisory Level 4 is not permitted.
• Microgrants may support the development of virtual U.S. study abroad programming in all countries, regardless of their U.S. Department of State Travel Advisory level.

Note that the Primary Investigator for the microgrant application does not need to have participated personally in the previous or ongoing IDEAS grant activities; this opportunity is open to any faculty or staff person at an IDEAS grantee institution. Only ONE application per institution will be considered. Collaboration among grantee institutions is permitted and encouraged