The Ford Foundation International Fellowships Program (IFP) announced today the selection of 401 new Ford Foundation International Fellows from among nearly 22,000 applicants worldwide. IFP accepts applications from people in 22 countries and territories throughout the developing world.

“IFP Fellows are thriving in their diverse academic settings, distinguishing themselves as excellent scholars and bringing valuable new perspectives to the universities where they are studying,” said Susan V. Berresford, president of the Ford Foundation.

Award winners in this fifth round of IFP competitions were selected on the basis of IFP’s three core criteria of academic achievement, strong leadership skills and potential, and commitment to the development of their communities and countries. IFP especially seeks candidates from groups and communities with little access to higher education.

“IFP’s strategic university partners know that IFP Fellows bring their strong cultural attachments and passion for social justice to their studies,” added Donald McHenry, chairman of the Board of Directors of the International Fellowships Fund, IFP’s parent organization, and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. “Their diverse experiences, and their diversity itself, is a boon to any academic community.”

IFP Fellows receive support for up to three years of post-baccalaureate study in an appropriate university program anywhere in the world. Currently, more than 1,000 IFP Fellows have enrolled at 385 different universities in 41 countries. IFP is expanding its network of “strategic university partnerships” with leading institutions around the world that provide language training, mentoring, and academic support for clusters of IFP Fellows. IFP now has formal agreements and clusters of Fellows at over 30 universities in a dozen countries. Among IFP’s university partners are the Asian Institute of Management in Manila, the Australian National University, the Center for Tropical Agronomy Research and Education in Costa Rica, Columbia University in New York, the East-West Center at the University of Hawaii, and the Universities of Sussex and Birmingham, UK.

“Grouping Fellows at excellent institutions has real benefits for Fellows,” said IFP Executive Director Joan Dassin. “The universities provide increased language training and academic support and mentoring, and our Fellows are able to quickly begin building a network among their IFP colleagues that aids their studies and their professional development.”

Over the past year, numerous IFP Fellows have been recognized for outstanding work in both academic and professional spheres, winning prestigious awards from their host universities, development agencies and national governments. Their extraordinary success is an important indicator that candidates chosen from groups and communities traditionally excluded from higher education can excel in competitive graduate programs. Several universities have offered outstanding IFP Fellows additional support to pursue doctoral studies after the term of their IFP Fellowship.

IFP continues to sponsor networking and leadership activities that complement formal graduate-level studies and aim to build an enduring cohort of IFP Fellows who can gain from each other’s learning and experience. IFP conducted four Leadership for Social Justice Institutes in 2004, in Mexico, the Netherlands, Thailand, and the USA.

Over 3,300 IFP Fellows will be chosen through 2012. The new IFP Fellows were chosen from among 21,684 applications received in Chile, China, Egypt, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Mozambique, Nigeria, Palestine, Peru, Senegal, South Africa, Thailand, and Vietnam. A total of 1,509 IFP Fellows have been selected since the program’s first Fellows were chosen in June 2001. Brazil, Kenya, Russia, Tanzania, and Uganda will rejoin the selection cycle in 2005.