SNF announces Diaspora Fellowship Program for Greek scholars

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) is inviting Greek scholars to apply for the Greek Diaspora Fellowship Program (GDFP).

The program, in cooperation with the Institute of International Education (IIE) and the Fulbright Foundation in Greece, allows selected fellows to conduct research, mentor undergraduate and graduate students in research, and design new curricula, furthering collaborative academic exchange among Greek scholars worldwide. The program is exclusively supported by the SNF.

Greece experienced a wave of emigration in the wake of the global economic crisis of 2008, primarily among highly educated young people seeking to escape high youth unemployment levels. In the first years of this crisis, the youth unemployment rate was above 50 percent, and only fell below 40 percent as late as June 2018, according to the Greek Statistics Authority ELSTAT.

“One of Greece’s greatest assets is the extraordinary pool of talent, knowledge, and experience held by Greeks of the diaspora. Academic institutions in North America, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa host a considerable number of Greek scholars, excelling in all fields, who want to contribute to education and research in their country of origin,” SNF Co-President Andreas Dracopoulos said in a statement.

“At a time when resources at Greek institutions are scarce, the GDFP formally and more fully activates unofficial lines of collaboration with Greece that have always existed. It encourages a flow of top scholars into Greece to teach and work with students, conduct research, and develop programming, resulting, rather than in brain drain, in global intellectual circulation.”

SNF said that research collaborations conducted by GDFP hosts and alumni have resulted in academic journal articles, conference presentations, seminars, and workshops. Project topics ranged from developing computational tools for surgical planning to examining the social networks of Jewish Holocaust survivors.

After the end of the fellowship terms, many alumni have continued to work with the institutions and scholars who hosted them in Greece. Nearly 90 percent of all fellows are continuing to collaborate on research projects with their counterparts at host institutions.