FY 2027 Fulbright Specialist Program: $4.6 Million Cooperative Agreement for Global One-Way Exchanges

FY 2027 Fulbright Specialist Program: $4.6 Million Cooperative Agreement for Global One-Way Exchanges

The FY 2027 Fulbright Specialist Program opportunity was a U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) competition for one organization to administer an established international exchange program. It was not an individual Fulbright Specialist application and it was not a grant for one specialist to propose a personal trip. ECA sought an experienced implementing organization to support the program’s register, project matching, participant support, communications, financial administration, and reporting.

The official Grants.gov listing is archived. The application deadline was June 29, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern time, and the listing shows an archive date of July 29, 2026. No later deadline or replacement FY 2027 funding opportunity is announced on the official listing. This page therefore remains as a historical reference to the closed FY 2027 competition. It should not be read as an invitation to submit a late application.

Official snapshot

The official notice says the award amount is approximately $4,600,000 and that the budget request could not exceed $4,600,000. Funding remained subject to availability, and the Department reserved the right to reduce, revise, or increase funding in response to program needs, foreign-policy priorities, and available funds. The notice anticipated one award and an award date of October 1, 2026, but that anticipated date was not a promise that an award would be made.

What the program supports

The underlying Fulbright Specialist Program sends approximately 400 American academics and professionals to countries around the world for short-term programming lasting two to six weeks. Specialists share professional expertise, strengthen networks, and work with overseas institutions on projects connected to education, innovation, trade, and U.S. foreign-policy priorities. Examples of specialist work include curriculum development, faculty or teacher training, needs assessments, program evaluations, symposia, and consultations about faculty or workforce needs.

Projects are requested by U.S. embassies and Fulbright Commissions in cooperation with overseas institutions. The notice identifies possible host institutions such as foreign universities, non-degree educational organizations, government agencies, teacher-training centers, cultural institutions, nongovernmental organizations, and think tanks. A host project is not the same thing as this funding opportunity. The FY 2027 competition was for the organization that would help ECA administer the broader system through which those projects are developed, reviewed, matched, and delivered.

The Department described a cooperative agreement with substantial federal involvement. ECA would work with the recipient on publicity, project submission, participant selection and matching, and disbursement of funds. ECA would oversee placement and selection decisions, set country project allocations, approve significant changes to approved projects, guide responses to emergencies, and approve public communications. Final selection of participating specialists remains subject to the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

Program operations described in the notice

The notice describes several connected workstreams for the recipient:

1. Project development. U.S. embassies and Fulbright Commissions invite project concepts from foreign institutions. Projects should identify fields, institutions, anticipated audiences, activities, objectives, expected impact, and possible cost-sharing arrangements. The notice highlights new academic programs, institutional ties, support for developing universities, and rapid responses to emerging needs as examples of project aims.

2. Project submission and matching. Embassies and commissions submit foreign-institution projects to ECA for review and approval. They may request candidates from the online Fulbright Specialist register. The program is described as operating on a rolling, year-round basis for project requests and register applications, but that operational feature does not reopen the archived FY 2027 cooperative-agreement competition.

3. Register development. Scholars and professionals may apply at any time to join the pre-screened register rather than waiting for a specific project. An independent academic panel reviews applications several times a year. Approved applicants join the register for a three-year term and may then be considered for matching to a project. The program submits a matched candidate to the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board for final approval.

4. Participant and partner support. The recipient is expected to administer a high-volume, short-term international exchange operation, support participants, communicate with overseas partners, manage funds, and maintain records. The notice also asks applicants to address rapid-response work, discipline-specific recruitment, different funding models, alumni engagement, and public communications.

5. Performance monitoring. ECA requires a practical monitoring and evaluation approach with objectives, indicators, targets, survey questions, data collection procedures, analysis, reporting, and a learning plan. The recipient must enter required performance data into the Department’s MyGrants Results Performance Monitoring module. Applicants could use the supplied Performance Monitoring Plan format or provide equivalent information in another presentation.

Eligibility for the closed competition

The notice names two eligible applicant classes: U.S. not-for-profit organizations, including think tanks and civil society or nongovernmental organizations, and U.S. not-for-profit public and private educational institutions. The page is therefore aimed at institutions applying to administer the program, not at individual academics, independent consultants, overseas host institutions, or for-profit companies seeking a specialist placement.

The notice adds requirements that matter for this award size. Every organization had to have a Unique Entity Identifier issued through SAM.gov and a valid SAM.gov registration. The applicant had to keep that registration active while the proposal was under review and, if selected, throughout the period of performance. ECA also requires organizations seeking awards above $130,000 to demonstrate at least four years of experience conducting international exchanges. Because this competition anticipated approximately $4,600,000, an applicant needed to demonstrate four years of international-exchange experience in its proposal.

The proposal also had to follow the Notice of Funding Opportunity, the Project Objectives, Goals, and Instructions document (POGI), and the Proposal Submission Instructions document (PSI). Failure to comply could make the proposal technically ineligible. The notice imposed no minimum or maximum percentage of cost sharing, although ECA encouraged applicants to provide cost sharing and evaluated cost-effectiveness and cost share as part of the review criteria.

Only one proposal could be considered from each applicant organization. If Grants.gov contained multiple submissions from the same legal applicant, ECA said it would consider the submission made closest to the deadline as that applicant’s one proposal. The legal name and EIN on the SF-424 and supporting documentation were therefore important for identifying the applicant organization.

Required application package

The required federal package included:

• SF-424;
• an executive summary;
• a proposal narrative;
• SF-424A;
• a detailed line-item budget; and
• a budget narrative.

The budget request could not exceed $4,600,000. Applicants could provide separate sub-budgets for components, phases, locations, or activities when that helped explain the request. The narrative needed to show an operating model, staffing, institutional capacity, federal-fund controls, exchange-program experience, and a credible approach to recruitment, review, matching, participant support, and partner coordination.

Applicants also needed to explain performance monitoring. A strong package would connect each program objective to measurable indicators and targets, identify who would collect and analyze data, describe how surveys would reach participants, and explain how findings would inform program decisions. The proposal also needed to address virtual exchange options that could complement or substitute for in-person engagement when circumstances required it, subject to ECA and overseas-mission approval.

How submission worked for this cycle

Applications could only be submitted electronically through Grants.gov. The complete solicitation package was available through Grants.gov and the ECA grant-opportunities site. An applicant organization needed to review the Grants.gov registration instructions, confirm that the organization and its Authorized Organization Representative could submit, assemble the federal forms and attachments, and allow enough time for the portal to process the transmission.

The practical sequence was:

1. Confirm that the legal entity fit one of the eligible U.S. not-for-profit categories and document at least four years of international-exchange experience.
2. Confirm the organization’s UEI and active SAM.gov registration. The notice warns that obtaining or renewing SAM registration can take four to eight weeks, so registration should have been handled before final proposal assembly.
3. Read the NOFO, POGI, and PSI together. Use the PSI for formatting and proposal-preparation instructions, and use the POGI for the program’s objectives and recipient responsibilities.
4. Prepare the SF-424, SF-424A, executive summary, narrative, detailed budget, budget narrative, monitoring plan or equivalent monitoring documentation, and other required attachments.
5. Check that the legal name, EIN, budget totals, personnel information, narrative commitments, and attachments agree across the package. Submit only one proposal for the organization.
6. Transmit the complete application through Grants.gov before June 29, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern time. The portal’s electronic timestamp, acknowledgement, and tracking number were the evidence of timely receipt.

Those steps describe the FY 2027 cycle and are preserved for researchers and future applicants comparing ECA competitions. They are not instructions for a late submission: the NOFO states that applications uploaded after the deadline would be automatically rejected as technically ineligible, and the official listing is now archived.

Review and award considerations

ECA planned to screen proposals for technical eligibility before program-office and grant-panel review. Review criteria covered the quality and relevance of the program idea, institutional capacity and prior record, performance monitoring and evaluation, cost-effectiveness and cost share, and follow-on activity. Reviewers were expected to look for a detailed work plan, staff and institutional resources, internal controls for federal funds, exchange-program experience, a feasible monitoring plan, and a plan that would keep the program from becoming a series of isolated events.

The notice also made clear that issuing the NOFO was not an award commitment. Final awards depended on appropriations, allocation, internal ECA procedures, and the decision of an authorized ECA Grants Officer. The anticipated October 1, 2026 award date was consequently a planning estimate in the notice, not a confirmed award result.

What applicants should do now

This FY 2027 funding round has ended. Do not use the June 29, 2026 deadline as a live submission date, and do not assume that the rolling nature of specialist project requests creates a late-application exception for the cooperative agreement. Organizations interested in the program can still use the official ECA and Fulbright Specialist pages to understand the separate routes for specialist register applicants, overseas host institutions, embassies, and Fulbright Commissions. Those routes concern program participation and project development; they are distinct from competing for the administrative award recorded here.

For historical research, keep the official opportunity number DFOP0018215 with the archived listing and the attached FY 2027 NOFO and POGI. The listing identifies the Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs as the agency, records one anticipated cooperative agreement of approximately $4,600,000, and preserves the eligibility and submission framework used for this cycle.

Official documents

• Archived FY 2027 Fulbright Specialist Program listing
• FY 2027 Fulbright Specialist Program NOFO
• FY 2027 Fulbright Specialist Program POGI
• Fulbright Specialist Program overview from Exchange Programs

The page is intentionally marked as a historical reference because the official FY 2027 competition is closed and no successor deadline is confirmed in the source checked for this update.