The Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program was initiated in 1978 to honor the late Senator and Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey and his lifelong commitment to international cooperation and public service. The program brings accomplished mid-career professionals from designated developing nations and emerging democracies to the United States for a year of academic study, related professional experience, and cultural exchange. The people-to-people approach to international understanding provides a basis for lasting ties between U.S. citizens and their professional counterparts in other countries, and strengthens the global exchange of knowledge and experience essential to a sustainable world.
Fellowships are granted competitively to professional candidates with a commitment to public service. The program is sponsored by the United States Department of State and is administered nationally by the Institute of International Education (IIE), which assigns fellows to a host university based upon each fellow’s interests and needs.
Each year, about a dozen Humphrey Fellows come to the University of Minnesota’s Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, which serves as their base for their fellowship year. The goals of the Humphrey Fellowship Program at the University of Minnesota are:
- to enable each fellow to develop a program that fosters personal and professional growth and that prepares the fellow for leadership roles in his or her country;
- to provide opportunities for a rich exchange of information among Fellows, and also between Fellows and host families, community members, professional colleagues and students/faculty at the University;
- to help fellows understand as broadly and deeply as possible the U.S. cultural, political, and economic systems; and
- to help fellows develop a fuller sense of the global context in which they and their countries operate.
The International Fellows and Scholars office and the Humphrey School do not administer the application process for this fellowship. For detailed information about the fellowship and its application process, please visit the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program's website.
View the 2026-2027 Hubert H. Humphrey Fellows
International Fellows Alumni
Over nearly 40 years, the International Fellows and Scholars Program at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs has had the pleasure of hosting more than 500 professionals and scholars from more than 100 countries.
The international fellows who have come to the Humphrey School for professional and academic development have enriched and expanded our community and have provided a people-to-people approach to understanding international affairs and the importance of a global community. Many of the fellows who have been a part of our community have returned to their home countries to become international ambassadors, world-renowned human rights advocates, national dignitaries, and high-ranking officials in some of the world’s most important international organizations.