The University Administration Support Program (UASP)

Program Overview

The University Administration Support Program (UASP) is funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

IREX’s University Administration Support Program (UASP), funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, benefits university administrators at select state universities in Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Ukraine. The program provides access to pertinent university management skills and models of administration, and is designed to provide training to university administrators in the region while providing more concentrated funding to those university administrators who demonstrate they have the initiative, skills, and institutional support necessary to turn their institutions into models of administrative excellence. To this end, IREX implements a two-tiered program designed to provide opportunities to university administrators in the region. (Note: until 2008, UASP operated only in Russia.)

Program elements include:

Fellowships in University Administration that provide funding for senior level administrators to spend approximately 8 weeks at host universities in the United States. IREX places each visiting administrator with a counterpart at a respected US university to work one-on-one on a specific university-management topic. Administrators then produce case studies on their topics to be presented at a workshop in Washington, DC. The fellowships are awarded on a competitive basis to eligible administrators.
Pilot Project Grants. After completion of their fellowships in the United States, the university administrators apply for small grants to jump-start reform projects at their home universities.

KEY ISSUES AND OBJECTIVES

Support select universities in six Eurasian countries in implementing administrative and management reforms

PROJECT RESULTS (note: UASP was only operating in Russia until 2008)

Over 40 senior-level administrators from 25 Russian universities and the Ministry of Education and Science received US research internships to work with their counterparts and to study pertinent management skills and models
Over 30 UASP alumni and their institutions received pilot project grants of $20,000 each to jump start university reform projects in their home institutions

Program ActiviTIes

Studying and implementing new administrative and management models in Eurasian universities: During the US research internships senior-level university administrators from Eurasia work directly with their counterparts in prestigious US universities by participating and shadowing them in daily activities along with studying administrative and management models in areas such as university strategic planning, financing and budget management, integration of teaching and research, and quality assurance. The UASP fellows created case studies with suggested administrative changes for their home university, which they later implemented.
Initiating innovative administrative reform projects: With follow-on grants the UASP alumni’s institutions initiate reform projects that the alumni propose for their home universities. The grants enable the universities to jump-start innovative administrative projects. Past examples include establishing an alumni center at Samara State University, creating a student research and development incubator at Tomsk State University, and designing a quality assurance system and university strategic plan for Voronezh State University.

Developing partnerships between Russian and US universities: The program promotes collaboration and development of sustainable partnerships between UASP fellows, their US counterparts and their institutions that result in new projects such as administrator and faculty exchanges, credit system recognition, and organization of international conferences.

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