Our Mission

The mission of STEM for Development is to increase the accessibility of world-class graduate degree programs (Master’s, PhD) to STEM students in developing and underrepresented regions through free professional development, mentorship, and research training programs.

STEM for Development envisions a world where STEM talent can receive world-class education and training irrespective of national origins or economic opportunity.

International exchange in education is fundamental to innovation in science and technology (S&T). For instance, ~50% of America’s top 50 AI companies have foreign-born founders who came to the US on student visas, and international students comprise a substantial proportion of US doctorate degree earners in the life sciences (27%), physical/earth sciences (37%), mathematics/computer science (56%), and engineering (57%). Though some of these students will settle in their host country and others will not, they all contribute to the global research enterprise, build international collaboration networks, and act as science diplomats for their respective countries.

While STEM talent is clearly not bound by national borders, the world's top graduate programs are disproportionately composed of students from the world's wealthiest economies, with developing nations largely left behind. For instance, despite being home to >1.1 billion people, only ~2,500 students from Sub-Saharan Africa are admitted to top countries like the US each year to pursue a Master's or PhD in any field, with success rates from application to matriculation at less than 10%. Representation from other global regions is similarly poor: the US draws only ~4,000 graduate students from Latin America and the Caribbean each year (population: >650 million) and only ~4,100 from South and Southeast Asia and Oceania (when excluding China and India; population: ~1.2 billion).

With students from developing countries lacking access to and representation in top STEM graduate programs abroad, and often facing low-resource universities at home, many brilliant and innovative minds are lost from the global S&T ecosystem. This has led to a shortage of highly-skilled STEM talent in their home countries and deprives host countries of valued contributions. At STEM for Development, we see this challenge as an opportunity to raise the quality of STEM training at universities around the world, while also enabling the mobility of talent for the benefit of all.

Contrary the perceptions of researchers and policymakers from wealthy economies, many STEM students from developing countries possess sufficient qualifications to gain admission to international graduate programs. However, these students often lack the critical professional skills necessary to competitively engage in the international STEM ecosystem. Such students have not had exposure to (i) the process for applying to STEM graduate programs, (ii) the skills to write application documents that adequately demonstrate their capabilities, and (iii) communication skills to engage international institutions and potential research mentors. This education gap requires direct and intensive training to overcome.

STEM for Development seeks to address this education gap and mobilize student talent both domestically and internationally by providing intensive mentorship and professional and research skill development to students from developing countries around the world. We are uniquely poised to address this gap by our international team of 20 staff and 40 mentors, comprised of expert researchers, international STEM educators, and the students who have already benefited from our support.