March 17, 2025
Social media platforms have recently shared reports about U.S. funding freezes that have left individual 2024-25 Fulbright grantees — both U.S. grantees abroad and international grantees in the United States — without their grant funding. These reports do not apply to the Fulbright Finland Foundation’s grantees.
All core Fulbright awards to students and scholars (both American grantees in Finland and Finnish grantees in the United States) are fully funded by Finnish institutions through the long-term partnership agreements that the Foundation has with Finnish higher education institutions, research agencies, private Finnish foundations, and private philanthropists. The grant payments to the grantees are also made by the Foundation itself, and all 2024-25 grantees have received their monthly grants as usual and will continue to do so.
This year’s Finnish and U.S. grantees are routinely in contact with their respective program teams at the Foundation and continue to receive updates about any news concerning them. The Foundation also recently held its regular virtual mid-semester discussions with its Finnish grantees currently in the United States. Similarly, all of the Foundation’s U.S. grantees currently in Finland will be convening for their in-person mid-semester seminar in Helsinki this week.
However, the Fulbright Specialist program—a short-term grant for U.S. citizens directly funded by the U.S. State Department—is currently temporarily suspended. Further information about the resumption of the program is expected soon from the U.S. State Department. The Foundation has been in contact with the two Finnish host institutions expecting a Specialist under this program in April and will continue to relay updates as soon as more information becomes available.
