Visiting Scholars Partnership Program (VSPP)

Florida State University is pioneering a new model for international research collaboration through its inaugural Visiting Scholars Partnership Program (VSPP), an initiative designed to foster innovation by building lasting research relationships between FSU faculty and leading international institutions.

Unlike traditional faculty exchanges, the program pairs researchers together months before they arrive on campus, creating the foundation for a monthlong residency centered on shared research goals and collaboration that continues after the visit.
 

The inaugural cohort, held July 5-31, brought eight visiting scholars from four leading institutions in India to FSU’s Tallahassee campus for exploratory research collaborations. Each scholar was matched with FSU faculty whose research interests aligned with their own, with collaborations spanning fields including aerospace engineering, biomedical engineering, biomechanical engineering, materials engineering, quantum physics, entrepreneurship, and materials science and engineering.

Throughout the residency, participants met regularly to exchange ideas, explore shared research interests and identify opportunities for future collaboration. The approach has already produced research publications, grant proposals and expanded international research partnerships.

One collaboration that illustrates the program’s impact brought together Namrata Gundiah, a professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, and Tristan Driscoll, assistant professor of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering. While this was their first time meeting each other in-person, Gundiah and Driscoll had already collaborated on a paper published earlier this year examining how cells respond to mechanical forces.

“This was an occasion for us to actually meet in person and also learn a few new things and build on this initial paper that we had,” Gundiah said.

The VSPP helped Gundiah and Driscoll identify three potential areas for collaboration and future grant proposals, building on their shared interest in how mechanical forces influence cellular behavior and disease progression. By combining Driscoll’s expertise in cellular force measurement with Gundiah’s advanced platforms for applying controlled mechanical stress, the researchers aim to better understand disease processes and pursue new approaches for therapeutic discovery for conditions like Marfan syndrome and lymphedema.

“It's important for us to step out of our comfort zone periodically,” Gundiah said. “I am at a point in my life where I'm willing to look outside and think more globally about not just my own research, but what I bring back to my community in India.”

Housed in the Office of the Provost, the VSPP receives strategic oversight from the Office for Strategic Initiatives and Innovation and is implemented by the Learning Systems Institute (LSI), which conducts research and develops evidence-based interventions to improve individual and organizational performance. The Center for Global Engagement also supported the program’s launch by helping coordinate operations and facilitating immigration and onboarding processes for the visiting scholars.

The initiative was originally conceptualized by Farrukh Alvi, senior associate provost for Strategic Initiatives and Innovation and the Don Fuqua Eminent Scholar and Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the FAMU–FSU College of Engineering.

Alvi embarked on an eight-day visit to some of the top institutions in India in 2025, where discussions with university leaders evolved into a new framework for long-term institutional partnerships.

Deborah Gautier, director of FSU’s Strategic Initiatives and Innovation in the Office of the Provost, has worked alongside Alvi since the program's inception, helping coordinate the initiative's development, plan strategic engagements with partner institutions and support negotiations of memoranda of understanding with participating universities.
Home to some of the world's fastest-growing research and technology institutions, India offers significant opportunities for long-term global research collaboration.

"It's about building connections with experts in their domains across the world and bringing together complementary expertise to solve bigger problems and provide better training and education — not just in Florida or in Tallahassee or in the U.S., but across the world," Alvi said.

Participating partner institutions included the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras), Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT Kanpur), Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT Delhi), and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc). FSU has established or is finalizing MOUs with all four universities and the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay) to expand international research and academic partnerships.

Vilma Fuentes, director of FSU’s Ukraine Task Force and visiting associate in research at LSI, served as the inaugural program director of the VSPP.

An experienced leader of international exchange programs, Fuentes previously implemented 15 Community College Administrator Programs (CCAP), bringing higher education leaders from around the world to the United States to explore the community college system and gain insight into its administrative practices and academic opportunities. She has also hosted several cohorts of BridgeUSA Fellows from Ukraine at FSU
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“I had the privilege of seeing magic happen before my eyes,” Fuentes said. “These types of research partnerships require intentionality. We can say, ‘it was serendipity’ — two different researchers met at a conference and made a connection. But with intention and purpose, we can achieve so much more.”

Through the program’s immersive structure, this year’s scholars explored FSU’s world-class facilities, including the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (MagLab), the Challenger Learning Center, FSU Libraries, the Innovation Hub, IGNITE Tallahassee, Florida Institute for Pediatric Rare Diseases and the Florida Center for Advanced Aero-Propulsion (FCAAP), which Alvi helped establish at FSU in 2008.

Participants also met administrators across multiple departments and engaged in rich, one-on-one collaboration with their faculty peers several times each week.

Amit Mehndiratta, professor of Biomedical Engineering at IIT Delhi, was paired with Bill Lickson, specialized faculty in FSU’s Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship, and Pradeep Bhide, the Jim and Betty Ann Rodgers Eminent Scholar Chair of Developmental Neuroscience and director of the Florida Institute for Pediatric Rare Diseases and the Center for Brain Repair at the FSU College of Medicine.

The trio identified several potential areas for collaboration, including healthcare entrepreneurship and opportunities to connect research with commercialization. Discussions included exploring opportunities to engage with the FSU Health, the university’s integrated academic health system, as well as connecting biomedical research with entrepreneurship programs to advance innovations from the laboratory into practice.

“I think science has evolved as a global platform where scientists are agnostic to boundaries, and platforms like this give us an opportunity to explore different ideas and think laterally,” Mehnidiratta said. “In our busy teaching and research schedules, we don't often get that opportunity.”

The inaugural VSPP cohort marks the beginning of FSU’s broader efforts to build a sustained global research network. In partnership with International Programs, FSU will host two global congress events at the FSU Valencia Study Center in February 2027: the Global Congress on Quantum Networks and Information and the Global Congress on Rare Diseases and Detection. Administrators are also exploring opportunities to expand the VSPP to additional regions, with a second cohort of visiting scholars expected in May/June 2027.

Visit the Visiting Scholars Partnership Program webpage to learn more about VSPP. For more information about LSI, visit lsi.fsu.edu. To learn more about FSU’s global footprint, visit global.fsu.edu.