NATO Public Diplomacy partners with the Fulbright Commission to launch a new Fellowship Programme

  • 27 Mar. 2020 -
  • |
  • Last updated: 27 Mar. 2020 13:07

NATO and the Fulbright Commission in Brussels launched today the new Fulbright-NATO Fellowship Programme in the field of cultural diplomacy.

NATO Headquarters, Brussels Belgium

This new programme’s aim is to foster awareness and understanding of NATO and promote debate on security and defence on a transatlantic level. International scholars apply annually via the Fulbright Council for the International Exchange of Scholars (CIES). The Fulbright Commission in Brussels and the NATO Public Diplomacy Division will review applications together.

NATO's Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy, Ambassador Tacan Ildem said:

“I am very pleased to launch this innovative project in the field of cultural diplomacy, together with the Fulbright Commission by establishing a new Fulbright-NATO Fellowship Programme. The role of cultural diplomacy in promoting human and democratic values, highlighting the richness of diversity among people, through the exchange of ideas, information and academic work, is of high importance to a value-based organization such as NATO. By promoting mutual understanding, cultural diplomacy plays a crucial role also in preventing those tensions that are at the basis of conflicts.

Erica Lutes, the Executive Director of the Fulbright Commission in Brussels said:

"Through our renewed partnership with NATO, we look forward to promoting important, innovative research and to fulfilling the mission of the Fulbright Program to foster mutual understanding and people-to-people connections around the world. Starting next fall, this partnership will bring academics and experienced professionals from the United States to conduct research, lecture, and engage with the community here in Belgium. We believe that their contributions will increase the level of academic debate on peace and security on both sides of the Atlantic."

Mrs. Tessa Jolls, one of this year’s two laureates, is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Center for Media Literacy in the United States. She said:

I am truly honored and thrilled to have the opportunity to work with outstanding institutions and colleagues to provide and promote this needed overview of how media literacy can contribute more effectively to strategic defense within the NATO Alliance.

Dr. Andrew Wolff, the other laureate for 2020, is the Resident Director of the European Studies Program at Dickinson College in Bologna Italy. He said:

The approach I have chosen for examining security and international organization theories is with detailed case studies and policy tracing. These techniques will reveal the political and strategic considerations major security actors (national and organizational) confronted when making security decisions. This qualitative approach requires that I interface with European security practitioners and experts.”

The outcome of their two research projects will reach a wide audience. The project will initially reach 250 policymakers through interviews conducted by both Dr. Jolls and Dr. Wolffs. Regular lectures at American University Brussels, UCLouvain or the College of Europe in Bruges will reach out to a large youth audience.

The Fulbright Program is the prestigious international exchange program supported for more than half a century by the American people through an annual appropriation from the U.S. Congress and by the people of partner nations. It bears the name of Senator J. William Fulbright, who in 1945 introduced a bill in the U.S. Congress that called for the use of proceeds from the sales of surplus war property to fund the “promotion of international good will through the exchange of students in the fields of education, culture and science.” The program -- working with universities, schools, binational Fulbright commissions, government agencies, nongovernmental organizations and the private sector -- actively seeks out individuals of achievement and potential who represent the full diversity of their respective societies and selects nominees through open, merit-based competitions.


A recent visit of the annual Fulbright seminar – 7 February 2020

More information about NATO can be found on www.nato.int, and via Facebook.

More information about the global Fulbright Program is available at https://eca.state.gov/fulbright