Aga Khan Foundation: International Scholarships (Switzerland)

Grants

International scholarships (post-graduate education), Aga Khan Foundation, Switzerland. Deadline: none.

The Aga Khan Foundation’s International Scholarship Programme (AKF ISP) is an opportunity for outstanding scholars from selected countries, who have no other means of financing their studies, to pursue postgraduate education. Established in 1969 by His Late Highness Aga Khan IV, the AKF ISP has supported more than 1,500 students to date.

Award recipients are selected through a global, annual, and competitive application process. The AKF ISP offers a limited number of new awards in each cycle. The 2026-2027 award cycle is now open.

The AKF ISP is available in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Kenya, the Kyrgyz Republic, Madagascar, Mozambique, Pakistan, Syria, Tajikistan, Tanzania and Uganda. In countries, such as Canada, Portugal and the USA, applications are accepted from those who are originally from one of the countries listed above. At this time, the AKF ISP is not available to students who wish to study in the United Kingdom or Russia.

To be eligible for an AKF ISP award, you must:

  • have excellent academic records;

  • hold a Bachelor’s degree or equivalent training / professional experience;

  • demonstrate genuine financial need;

  • demonstrate a thoughtful, reliable, multi-source funding plan that covers all years of study;

  • be admitted to a reputable postgraduate institution;

  • be starting the first year of the programme; and

  • have strong leadership potential, professional experience, extracurricular and/or entrepreneurial achievements, and volunteer contributions.

Note: preference is given to young professionals under 30 years of age.

 

ACLS: Leading Edge Fellowships 2026-27 (USA)

FellowshipsLeading Edge Fellowships, American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS is based in New York, but the fellowships are across the USA). Deadline: 12 March 2026.

The American Council of Learned Societies is pleased to announce the eighth competition of the Leading Edge Fellowship program, which demonstrates the potential of humanistic knowledge and methods to solve problems, build organizational capacity, and advance justice and equity in society. Leading Edge Fellowships place recent humanities PhDs with nonprofit organizations advancing justice and equity in their communities. Fellows take on substantive roles that draw on the skills and capacities honed in the course of earning the humanities PhD, including advanced communication, research, project management, and creative problem solving.

The fellowships are designed to foster mutually beneficial partnerships between fellows and their hosting organizations. Each applicant may apply for up to two of the available Leading Edge Fellowship opportunities. There is a separate selection process for each fellowship opportunity

ACLS will hold two webinars for applicants to the 2026 ACLS Leading Edge Fellowship, offering real-time feedback on questions about eligibility, the online application, and the fellowship review and selection process. Please register for February 24 or March 4.

CID Poster 12: The Elephant in the Room Translated into Italian

CID PostersThis poster, designed by Linda J. de Wit, has now been translated into Italian. It demonstrates visually the common expression “the elephant in the room,” used to describe something which is obvious but not being discussed openly.

Here we present the Italian translation, CID Poster 12: L’elefante nella stanza, provided by Maria Flora Mangano, with additional graphic design work by Yan Qiu.

CID Poster 12: The elephant in the room translated into Italian

The image was originally prepared to illustrate In Dialogue: CID Occasional Papers 1: Intercultural Dialogue as the Elephant in the Room: Moving from Assumptions to Research Investigations, by Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz. The quote integrated into the poster comes from that paper, and says:

Intercultural dialogue might be called the elephant in the room, a metaphor referring to something obvious which is nonetheless ignored. Most often, practitioners and diplomats use the term intercultural dialogue, but they rarely define it, and conduct little to no research in order to discover how it works, but only hold it up as a desired end. Academics, who certainly conduct research, rarely use this term, thus have rarely studied it, although some research by other names sheds light on how it works.

Just in case anyone wants to cite this poster, the following would be the recommended format:

Center for Intercultural Dialogue. (2026). L’elefante nella stanza [M. F. Mangano, trans.]. CID Posters, 12. Available from:
https://centerforinterculturaldialogue.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/cid-poster-12-the-elephant-in-the-room-italian.png

As with other series, CID Posters are available for free on the site; just click on the thumbnail to download a printable PDF. They may be downloaded, printed, and shared as is, without changes, without cost, so long as there is acknowledgment of the source.

As with other series, if you wish to contribute an original contribution, please send an email before starting any work to receive approval, to minimize inadvertent duplication, and to learn about technical requirements. As is the case with other CID Publications, posters should be created initially in English. If you want to volunteer to translate a poster into a language in which you are fluent, send in a note before starting, to receive approval.

Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz
Director, Center for Intercultural Dialogue
intercult.dialogue AT gmail.com

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

U Leicester: Executive Director of International (UK)

“JobExecutive Director of International, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK. Deadline: 22 February 2026.

The University of Leicester is seeking an exceptional candidate for the position of Executive Director of International to lead the University’s international strategy, driving UK and global engagement, partnerships, reputation and the growth of income. This senior leadership role is responsible for shaping and delivering strategic plans that enhance the University’s international profile, increase and diversify international student recruitment, grow transnational education, and strengthen global collaborations. You will oversee key international functions and partnerships, and will represent the University externally, influencing policy and practice at national and international levels.

Exploring Otherness as an Opportunity for Intercultural Dialogue in a Colombian Public University English Program

Resources in ICD“ width=

Montoya López, J. C. & Jiménez Arango, M. A. (2025). Exploring Otherness as an opportunity for intercultural dialogue in a Colombian public university English program. Lenguaje, 53(2), e20414682.

“Embracing intercultural dialogue through Otherness can enable higher education institutions to ethically address intercultural issues in local communities facing globalization. Strategies such as the anglicization of the curriculum rarely address interculturality as they overlook its complex and polysemic nature. To shed light on this problem, we drew on intercultural education from a decolonial perspective to study the English program of a Colombian university that promotes internationalization from a territorial perspective. The research strategies included document analysis of 15 communicative tasks, English language faculty’ narratives, and students’ artifacts. To commit to decoloniality, we intertwined these strategies through diálogo de saberes (knowledge dialogues methodology) seminars with faculty. The findings suggest that the tasks openness to diversity and inclusion might contribute to intercultural dialogue but the subtle ways in which they reproduce colonial ideologies hamper it by impeding Otherness. This finding implies the need for decolonial professional development and further research.”

NIAS Fellowships 2026-27 (Netherlands)

FellowshipsNIAS Fellowships, 2026-27, Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Deadline: 16 March 2026.

NIAS has opened its fellowship calls – welcoming thinkers whose curiosity and insight transcend disciplinary boundaries. Scholars, journalists, artists and writers come together in a vibrant community where ideas breathe, collide and take shape.

NIAS has opened its fellowship calls – welcoming thinkers whose curiosity and insight transcend disciplinary boundaries. Scholars, journalists, artists and writers come together in a vibrant community where ideas breathe, collide and take shape.

In a time of complex global challenges, these fellowships are more important than ever: they create space to move beyond comfort zones, question assumptions, and pursue ideas unbound by immediate utility. At NIAS, the value of research is not measured primarily by immediate outcomes but by the questions it provokes, the perspectives it reveals, and the conversations it sparks.

The fellows include Safe Haven researchers: scholars whose work has been disrupted by war, conflict or persecution. Their presence signals a form of intellectual life that is grounded in the world, alert to its pressures, and free in its thinking.

The calls are an invitation to inhabit a space where curiosity reigns, creativity flourishes, and the boundaries of knowledge expand – one bold question at a time.

Founded in the 1970s, NIAS was the first institute for advanced study in continental Europe and the third globally, following Princeton and Stanford. At a time when academia was siloed and national in scope, NIAS brought together scholars from different disciplines and countries to rethink boundaries – a mission it continues to uphold.

Coalition for Language Education: Going Local in Language Education (UK)

EventsGoing local in language education: Cities as sites for cross-sectoral connection, Coalition for Language Education, UCL, East London, UK, 28 March 2026.

Cities are multilingual.  At home, at work, in community life and across a range of media, people learn, switch & blend languages and ways of speaking in both routine and creative ways.  But can we do more in education to cultivate and capitalise on this linguistic energy and expertise? We can’t ignore rising xenophobia and hostility to difference, alongside declining provision in modern languages, massive underfunding in ESOL, overwhelming neglect in EAL and heritage/community languages, and the siloed fragmentation of language education more generally.  Even so, we have ‘Cities of Languages’ in the UK, and the DfE’s Curriculum & Assessment Report calls on “local authorities, multi-academy trusts and schools to explore the potential benefits of a coordinated approach in their local areas”.  So in what ways can cities serves as sites for regenerating language education?

This one-day event brings people together from schools, universities, adult education, community organisations and policy to consider how cities can act as spaces for language development and cross-sector collaboration. Through case studies, structured discussions and cross-sector dialogue, we will look at what it means to organise locally for languages, exploring the principles emerging for locally driven, inclusive and critically informed strategies for language.

CFP Global Communication and Global Governance (China)

Conferences

Call for submissions: Global Communication and Global Governance, Xiamen University, China, 29-31 May 2026. Deadline: 1 March 2026.

Xiamen University is pleased to announce an international communication conference on “Global Communication and Global Governance,” organized in collaboration with members of the National Communication Association (NCA) and leaders from the Communication University of China (CUC). The conference will be held at Xiamen University, China, from May 29 to 31, 2026. Under this overarching theme, organizers invite research presentations that engage broadly with the communication discipline, particularly within three thematic tracks; the one most likely to be relevant to followers of the Center for Intercultural Dialogue is:

Theme 2: Video Trends in Intercultural and International Communication

From short-form video, proliferating entertainment platforms, and livestreaming to documentaries, viral clips, and transnational media flows, video has become a central site of cultural expression, negotiation, and contestation. This track foregrounds video as a key mode of symbolic action in intercultural and international communication, inviting scholarship that examines how video technologies and practices shape representation, identity, power relations, and cross-cultural understanding. They invite scholarship on platform cultures, digital storytelling, creator and influencer economies, diasporic media, and the transnational circulation of video across linguistic and cultural boundaries, foregrounding dialogue on how evolving video practices are transforming intercultural communication. They welcome perspectives that critically engage how contemporary video trends both enable and constrain intercultural and international dialogue in an increasingly mediated and contested global environment.

CID Poster 11: Language and Intercultural Communication Translated into Italian

CID PostersSeveral years ago, Brandon Peña created CID Poster 11: Language and Intercultural Communication.

Here we present the Italian translation, CID Poster 11: Lingua e comunicazione interculturale, illustrating a quote related to KC78: Language and Intercultural Communication by Jane Jackson. This new version of the poster exists thanks to the Italian translation provided by Maria Flora Mangano, and the graphic design work by Yan Qiu.

CID Poster 11 Language and Intercultural Communication translated into Italian

 

Just in case anyone wants to cite this poster, the following would be the recommended format:

Center for Intercultural Dialogue. (2026). Lingua e comunicazione interculturale [M. F. Mangano, trans.]. CID Posters, 11. Available from:
https://centerforinterculturaldialogue.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/cid-poster-11-italian.png

As with other series, CID Posters are available for free on the site; just click on the thumbnail to download a printable PNG. They may be downloaded, printed, and shared as is, without changes, without cost, so long as there is acknowledgment of the source.

As with other CID Publications, if you wish to contribute an original contribution, please send an email before starting any work to receive approval, to minimize inadvertent duplication, and to learn about technical requirements. As is the case any series, posters should be created initially in English. If you want to volunteer to translate a poster into a language in which you are fluent, send in a note before starting, to receive approval and to confirm no one else is working on the same one.

Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz
Director, Center for Intercultural Dialogue
intercult.dialogue AT gmail.com

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.