As you may be aware, the Fulbright Commission worked with the Department of Education to change the policy that now allows Australian PhD students to stop the clock on their Australian Postgraduate scholarship to take up a Fulbright and undertake 8-12 months research in the U.S. related to their Australian PhD.
This has been very successful with 75-80% of Australian Fulbright Postgraduate Scholars now being current Australian PhD students. The benefits to the Fulbright Scholars and their Australian university include:
- the opportunity to work and build collaborations with leading researchers at some of the top U.S. universities;
- an international marker on their PhD and international joint publications, as a result of the experience; and
- the basis for long term ongoing international research collaborations and exchange between their U.S. host and Australian university.**
Unfortunately, we are still finding situations where PhD supervisors are not aware of this opportunity through Fulbright; do not understand how it works; and due to misunderstandings of selection criteria do not encourage their students to apply. Australian postgraduates are thus still regularly getting Fulbright Scholarships despite their supervisors, not because of them.
