On April 9, 2024, the USAID Partnership for Higher Education Reform project hosted a pre-departure webinar to prepare a cohort of 21 Vietnamese academic researchers for travel to the United States to undertake a three-month research fellowship in their respective disciplines in diverse areas that include advanced materials, anthropology, environmental sciences, economics, public policy, education, health sciences, and information technology.

The Visiting Scholar Program (VSP) provided the scholars traveling from Vietnam an overview of the program along with administrative and logistic information.

As part of an effort to improve research and innovation capacity, the project has launched the VSP for emerging scholars from partner universities in Vietnam. The objective of this academic sojourn at US universities is to support Vietnamese scholars in expanding their research skills, building connections with their academic counterparts in the US, and encouraging access to top laboratories, think tanks, and research centers. Ultimately, the VSP seeks to improve the quality and quantity of research being conducted by scholars at public universities in Vietnam by expanding opportunities through networking and by moving their research toward publication. Each visiting scholar will be hosted by a laboratory, research center, or academic department at Indiana University or another US host institution for a period of up to 3-months between March and November 2024.

The first webinar was intended to prepare the scholars with logistic information needed for travel to the US and guidance on research practices at universities in the United States.  The project will host a second webinar in May to review more deeply the research process and the steps necessary for each scholar to submit a publishable manuscript and other academic output upon their return to Vietnam.