Overview
The Program for North American Mobility in Higher Education is a grant competition run cooperatively by the governments of the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The purpose of this competition is to promote a student-centered, North American dimension to education and training in a wide range of academic and professional disciplines. The Program will fund collaborative efforts in the form of consortia consisting of at least two academic institutions from each country. The funding period will be for up to four years. This is the fourth grant competition for this program.
The Program for North American Mobility in Higher Education fosters student exchange within the context of multilateral curricular development. Students benefit from having an added "North American" curriculum and cultural dimension to their studies through combination of trilateral curricular innovation and study abroad.
The Program is administrated collectively by the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, U.S. Department of Education (FIPSE); Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC); and in Mexico by the Dirección de Desarollo Universitario, Secretaría de Educación Pública (SEP).
Conceived in the spirit of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the first grant competition for this Program was held in 1995 followed by competitions in 1996 and 1997. Since 1995, a total of 30 consortia have been funded involving around 200 institutions of higher education and related non-profit organizations.
The principles of this program are based on recommendations that emerged from the Guadalajara Conference of 1996, the Vancouver Communiqué 1993 and the Wingspread Declaration of 1992, which called for strengthened cooperation in higher education, research, and training among the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
The current grant guidelines are essentially similar in principle to the guidelines used in the 1995, 1996 and 1997 competitions but reflect revisions based on lessons learned from the experiences of past funding rounds. One important change has been the lengthening of project periods from three to four years by adding a first-year preparatory phase. Consortia in the past generally needed more time to prepare an administrative infrastructure before they began sending students abroad for study. Administrative agreements in the form of formal memoranda of understanding are key to the smooth operation and development of consortial projects as well as the ultimate institutionalization of these projects at all of the participating colleges and universities.
