Program Description

Sustainable development means increasing standards of living without harming the natural environment. Sustainable entrepreneurship is thus the establishment of new businesses that simultaneously create economic, social and environmental benefits. In a captivating, Year-Long Certificate Program, you will visit and experience culturally rich Brazil twice!

After studying the Portuguese language at WIU during the Spring semester, you will travel to Brazil for the summer, where you will embark on an intensive language immersion course. Then, you will return to WIU for the Fall semester to study the first online course focusing on entrepreneurship, corporate and social responsibility, sustainable development, and international business. The following Spring semester, you will travel to Brazil for the second time, where you will take courses that can count toward your regular degree as well as a second online course that focuses in further detail on the details of creating economically successful, socially just and environmentally sound entrepreneurial businesses. Throughout this course, we will emphasize the dissimilar perspectives of, and responses to, sustainbility dilemmas in American and Brazilian culture, society and business practice.

For the final part of the Year-Long Certificate Program, all students are configured into groups which will carry out a special project related to sustainable entrepreneurship.

 

US-Brazil Higher Education Consortia Program

The program, jointly administered by the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) and the Brazilian Ministry of Education, provides grants for up to four years to consortia of at least two academic institutions each from Brazil and the United States. The program fosters the exchange of students and faculty within the context of bilateral curricular development.

Types of Projects

The program supports projects that develop organizational frameworks for international student mobility between the United States and Brazil.

Additional Information

The U.S.-Brazil Higher Education Consortia Program (U.S.-Brazil Program) is a grant competition run cooperatively by the governments of the United States and Brazil. The purpose of this competition is to promote student-centered cooperation between the United States and Brazil to increase cross-national education and training opportunities in a wide range of academic and professional disciplines. The U.S.-Brazil Program will fund collaborative efforts in the form of consortia. A consortium must have at least two academic institutions from each country. The funding period will be for four years.

The U.S.-Brazil Program fosters university partnerships through the exchange of undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and staff within the context of bilateral curricular development. Students benefit from having an international curriculum and cultural dimension added to their studies through a combination of bilateral curricular innovation and study abroad.

The U.S.-Brazil Program is administrated jointly by the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE), U.S. Department of Education, and the Fundacao Coordenacao de Aperfeicoamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior (CAPES), Brazilian Ministry of Education.

Grants for the U.S.-Brazil Program will provide four years of funding. Each country will support only participating institutions within its borders. Most grants will be for four years of funding, including a first-year preparatory phase. Total grant amounts for each U.S. consortium will likely be about $220,000 for the four-year period. This amount will be matched on the Brazilian side.

The program aims to improve the quality of students in undergraduate and graduate education in both countries and to explore ways to prepare students for work through -

For more information on the U.S.-Brazil Higher Education Consortia Program, please visit the FIPSE website.