The Greek Diaspora Fellowship Program (GDFP) is proudly offered with funding by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) and implemented by the Institute of International Education (IIE) with the support of the Fulbright Foundation of Greece. To date, the program has awarded 87 Fellowships to the Greek and Cypriot diaspora around the world.

In November 2019, the GDFP Advisory Council convened in Athens at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC) to make selections of a new cohort of fellows and hosts. This included a public session where remarks were delivered by SNF, IIE, Fulbright, and the Minister of Education and Religious Affairs, Niki Kerameus.

The GDFP funds innovative projects that strengthen ties between Greece and her diaspora. Examples of newly funded projects include the following:

• The National Technical University of Athens will host a fellow from Pennsylvania State University to conduct research on improving seismic safety, resilience, and risk predictions.
• The University of Crete, Voutes Campus will host a fellow from Harvard University to collaborate on graduate student teaching and mentoring on state-of-the-art genome editing technology as well as developing genome-editing courses for masters-level students.
• The University of Thessaly, Volos Campus will host a fellow from the University of California, San Diego to conduct educational research around the social participation of students with special education needs who are based in public school.

Planning is also underway to develop a Greek Diaspora Academic Association that will bring together the diaspora and collaborators in Greece to strengthen partnerships. The Association is being led by a group of GDFP alumni in Greece and around the world.

GDFP projects focus on three areas: curriculum co-development, undergraduate and graduate research training, and mentoring and collaborative research. The GDFP also supports small grants for host universities to offer workshops as well support costs for research materials and publications. The fund has also awarded small grants to ten hosts and fellows to participate in international conferences.