Evaluations of two international fellowship programs, aimed at advancing partnerships of early career science and engineering researchers with foreign researchers, found the programs advantageous to both the fellows and other researchers. The findings by Abt Associates were presented to the funding agency, the National Science Foundation (NSF), in late March. 

 

Assessments of the NSF programs – the East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes Program (EAPSI) and the International Research Fellowship Program (IRFP) – found that the international experiences fostered future productive collaborations with researchers in foreign countries, according to Alina Martinez, principal associate in Abt’s Social and Economic Policy Division and lead of the research projects.

 

“Our findings showed that postdoctoral fellows in the IRFP program made important and enduring connections with researchers in their host country and that  their subsequent collaborations with researchers in foreign countries were more productive than those of their peers,” said Martinez.

 

“In our other study, we found evidence that the EAPSI experiences of graduate students led to more productive international research collaborations, which are important to the U.S.”  Martinez added that these partnerships have the potential to invigorate U.S. innovation and economic competitiveness as well as improve relations among countries.

 

Martinez, along with fellow researchers, Amanda Parsad and Carter Epstein, presented their findings to NSF on March 28.  Kristen Neishi and Karla Whittaker also were authors of the reports.