BSU Finalist in US-Russia Partnership Program Competition

Ball State University is a finalist in the US-Russia University Partnership Program’s (UPP) Contact Project Funding Competition.

The Contact Project Funding is the first of two stages in the UPP’s partnership funding process. In this stage, three pairs of institutions will be chosen to receive up to $2,500 to facilitate the development of their proposals for the second stage. Ball State’s pair institution is Novgorod State University in Russia.

“Contact project funding covers expenses for the establishment of communication channels, conduct of preliminary research or other information-gathering, and organization of meeting(s) between partner institutions.”

The second stage is the Linkage Project Funding competition. In this stage, the “UPP invites pairs of Russian and US higher education institutions to submit jointly-developed proposals for mutually-beneficial projects that build partnerships between institutions in both countries.”

“The US-Russia University Partnership Program (UPP) is an initiative for mutual cultural and academic collaboration that connects higher education institutions in Russia and [the] US with one another and supports the launch of new bilateral partnerships,” according to the UPP website. “It provides professors, researchers, administrators and other higher education professionals in Russia and [the] US an opportunity to broaden the scope of their activities and learn from the vast wealth of knowledge and experience the counterpart institution brings to the partnership.”