Education paper by Gherdán, Katalin
Reboot your Roots – Scholarship Program for the Hungarian Diaspora (Accepted)
Type of Abstract (select):Abstract (max. 250 words):
The Hungarian Diaspora Scholarship (HDS) launched in 2020 supports those who live in Hungarian diaspora communities, wish to reconnect to their Hungarian heritage and are determined to help their diaspora. The number of Hungarian diaspora members worldwide is about 2.5 M, with more than half of the members (around 1.4 M) living in the US and Canada (0.3 M). The number of people living in Hungarian minorities in the neighbouring countries in the Carpathian Basin is also around 2.5 M. For this latter group, the higher education system of Hungary has been already open, and the government has been giving extra support, offering scholarships, places in colleges for advanced studies and talent nurturing programmes, with the aim of helping young Hungarian intellectuals to succeed in their home countries, supporting their own communities. With the HDS, the same support is now also available for diaspora members, the programme providing access to a wide range of higher education study programmes in Hungary. The presentation gives insight into the most important aims of HDS, how its framework was established based on the needs of diaspora communities, and what synergies in the field of interculturalism can be identified with other scholarship programmes for international and Hungarian minority group students. The challenges and possibilities in promoting the programme and the students’ perspectives – how the needs of diaspora community members are reflected in the motivation letters of the first applicants – are also going to be discussed, with emphasis on applicants from the US and Canada.
Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Katalin Gherdán has been working with international scholarship programmes at Tempus Public Foundation for three years. Her main field of interest is the internationalisation processes of HEIs. Previously, she had worked as an assistant professor at Eötvös Loránd University, teaching mineralogy.