FAQs about VEF U.S. Faculty Scholar Program
VEF seeks highly qualified applicants in the major disciplines of the natural sciences, including agricultural sciences, biological sciences, earth sciences (i.e., atmospheric sciences, geology, meteorology, and oceanography), and environmental sciences; the physical sciences (chemistry and physics); engineering and technology (including information technology); mathematics; and medicine (including biomedical sciences, pharmaceutical sciences, and public health).
Click
here for detailed information on the fields of study supported by VEF.
No. In accordance with the Congressional legislation through which VEF was founded, VEF can support only U.S. citizens to teach in Vietnam.
No, applicants must hold an academic appointment at the level of Associate Professor, Professor, or Professor Emeritus.
To prevent any conflict of interest related to receiving Federal government funds for this project, the VEF U.S. Faculty Scholar must avoid doing non-VEF business in Vietnam while funded by VEF. Importantly, VEF funds must NOT be used for any purpose other than what appears in the grant application and what has been approved by the VEF Board of Directors. When teaching by video-conferencing from the United States, VEF U.S. Faculty Scholars may carry other academic responsibilities. However, funds from the VEF U.S. Faculty Scholar Grant can ONLY be used for the purposes stated expressly in the VEF Grant.
When you register at https://application.vef.gov/usfs/, an email with a link to activate your account will be sent to you. You need to click on that link in order to log in and start filling in your application.
If you have not received that email, please check your junk mail folder as your mail server might not accept emails from our system. If you still cannot find the activation email, please try registering again with another email address. You can always update this email at a later time. If you are still encountering problems after attempting to register a second time, please send an email to
usfs@vef.gov
No, VEF does not restrict the number of times that an applicant may apply, even if he/she has received a VEF grant in a previous year.
No, you are not precluded from applying for a VEF U.S. Faculty Scholar Grant. The Vietnam Education Foundation is independent of the Fulbright program.
Yes. Please send an email to
usfs@vef.gov that specifies your specific teaching field(s) and the level that you would propose to teach, whether undergraduate or graduate. VEF will send you a list of Vietnamese universities that have relevant teaching programs(s), which may be suitable for your proposal. This list is based on VEF’s knowledge about, and previous work with, Vietnamese higher education institutions. If you identify other Vietnamese educational institutions, you should feel free to contact them as well.
Yes, the grant money can be used for the U.S. Faculty Scholar salary, but not to pay for a replacement faculty member at the U.S. university.
The use of grant money must be delineated in the budget summary that is submitted with the application. The narrative should explain why the individual needs to receive salary from the VEF grant so that VEF and the reviewers understand your intent. The U.S. Faculty Scholar can also continue to be paid by his/her university or through other sources of funding while receiving VEF grant funds.
The author of the proposal (the applicant) must personally teach the course(s) he/she proposes. Once the proposal is approved for funding, the Faculty Scholar cannot be replaced by another person without permission from VEF. Team teaching can be proposed and is encouraged. In such a case, the names and details for all those teaching, along with their precise role and involvement, must be clearly indicated. However, the grant will only be awarded to a single individual.
VEF is interested in proposals for teaching during a full academic semester or year in Vietnam. The two semesters that make up the Vietnamese school year are typically scheduled from September through January and from February through June. Applicants may submit an application to teach for one or two semesters.
You may organize summer courses in addition to the regular academic year courses as long as you have the agreement of your host university or universities in Vietnam.
We cannot accept a proposal that only includes courses during the summer in Vietnam since universities are not in session from mid-June through mid-August.
No, you cannot apply for a VEF U.S. Faculty Scholar Grant to teach less than a full semester. The Faculty Scholar Program seeks to promote the development of bi-institutional relationships, which should be attainable through a minimum of one semester of academic involvement. Furthermore, proposals should demonstrate a longer-term perspective that includes sustainability and an on-going commitment to the capacity building of Vietnam.
To better ensure the program’s effectiveness and opportunities for follow-up, VEF requires that proposals have a timeframe for teaching over one or two semesters.
Typically the VEF Board of Directors approves up to 5 U.S. Faculty Scholar grants each year. If the budgetary requests specified in the applications of the finalists do not use the maximum amount available ($55,000), we may fund more than 5 proposals. Please click
here to join the VEF mailing list. We will keep you updated in regard to the latest announcements from VEF, should there be any changes.
No. The Call for Proposals states that, “VEF serves as the organizer and sponsor for this project while the Vietnamese host institutions and the cooperating U.S. institutions serve as co-sponsors through their support,” which rules out U.S. citizens teaching at foreign institutions.
One of the major goals of the VEF U.S. Faculty Scholar Grant is to establish cooperative, long-term relationships between the Faculty Scholar’s U.S. university and the Vietnamese host institution(s).
An applicant for the U.S. Faculty Scholar Grant must an Associate Professor, Professor, or Emeritus Professor. If you also hold such an appointment in another department, in addition to your clinical professorship, then you are eligible to apply.
Yes, you are obliged to attend. New U.S. Faculty Scholars must attend the Orientation. During the Orientation, arrangements are finalized regarding grant payments, and information is provided regarding teaching at Vietnamese universities. The date is fixed so that all parties can manage arrangements far in advance. There is no flexibility in the date.
Please refer to the Section on the budget in the Announcement, which is reproduced here:
Budget:
Prepare a budget that outlines personal and professional needs as line items. The budget should contain three columns that indicate how you intend to apply funds from potentially three or more sources: (1) the VEF grant; (2) the financial and/or in-kind contributions from the Vietnamese university or universities; and (3) any financial and/or in-kind contributions of your U.S. University. A draft budget template in Excel can be accessed through the online application. The maximum grant from VEF is U.S. $55,000. VEF will not provide any overhead to U.S. or Vietnamese institutions. Applicants are urged to secure in-kind contributions from the U.S. University for all videoconferencing costs related to use of facilities, equipment, and technical personnel.
You can seek financial support for the transportation cost (purchase of a round-trip air ticket) from VEF, your U.S. university, or your host Vietnamese university. This is totally up to the applicant. Please note that the USFS Program is a competitive one, so your proposed budget is one factor in the application review process.
According to the Vietnam Education Foundation Act 2000, through which VEF was created, VEF will have its sunset in 2018. Unless the U.S. Congress or Government makes a change to this legislation, the last VEF U.S. Faculty Scholar grants will be awarded for the 2016-2017 academic year. We advise that you visit the VEF website:
http://www.vef.gov/ frequently or click
here to join the VEF mailing list in order to receive updates on all our programs.
You, as the CPA, must make this determination based on input from the specific individual in order to determine the taxability of the grant, since there may be circumstances that VEF does not know, which would affect your client’s situation, including his relationship to the U.S. university, and the specific issuance of funds from the Vietnam Education Foundation (VEF). Your client can provide you with the official grant letter from VEF and any other relevant documents pertaining to the issuance of the funds by VEF.
The IRS website is an excellent source of information for your ultimate determination:
http://www.irs.gov/charities/foundations/article/0,,id=137396,00.html.
VEF does not give preference to applications regarding teaching at any particular kind of Vietnamese university, whether private or state-owned. All applications are welcome since the USFS program is aimed at enhancing educational opportunities and exchange in the STEMM fields between Vietnamese and U.S. universities as a whole.
No. Our U.S. Faculty Scholar program does not support science education. If you are interested in teaching biological science, then you would qualify. In the Call for Proposals, VEF expects that the U.S. professor will utilize U.S.-style teaching methodology and will train one or more Vietnamese teaching assistants to teach the course(s) in the future, using similar methodology.
The Vietnamese host university will be your visa sponsor. Please discuss this with your proposed host university to make sure that they are willing to provide you with necessary documents for your visa application.
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