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The International Center promotes relationships with educational institutions, student and faculty exchanges, and joint research projects through international academic exchange and collaboration.

International Research

Research and creativity crosses borders, and the grand challenges facing our  commonwealth, nation  and world are often inherently transnational in nature. The best ideas, the transformative science, the most innovative creative expression, can come from anywhere. The UK International Center supports faculty in doing research outside the U.S., building international research collaborations, and strengthening global professional networks. International Partnerships & Research collaborates with the Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) to strengthen research security and ensure that UK researchers comply with all relevant federal and state regulations and guidelines when engaging in international research.

UK's Global Footprint

As the flagship, land-grant, public research university serving the Commonwealth, the University of Kentucky is engaged in local, regional, transnational, and global relationships. The UK Global Footprint compiles and visualizes data on UK's global engagement activities to support existing activities and enhance strategic decision-making.

Global Footprint

Recent News

IIE NextGen Service Fellowship connects student design to global impact

Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, wakes early, its streets alive with vendors’ calls, the rumble of blue-and-white minibuses, and the scent of strong coffee drifting from corner cafés. Amid the bustle, Kauner Shacklette, a senior architecture student in the University of Kentucky College of Design, walks toward the city’s YMCA. As an inaugural recipient of the Institute of International Education’s (IIE) NextGen Service Fellowship, he has been tasked with putting his design knowledge into action by reimagining spaces that could help this community hub better serve its people. 

Emerging Leaders Program connects faculty interested in leading programs abroad

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 28, 2025) — As part of an ongoing effort to support faculty interested in leading education abroad programs, the office of Education Abroad and Exchanges is taking applications for the Faculty-Directed Emerging Leaders program. The program is designed for UK faculty or staff who are approved for teaching and are interested in directing an education abroad program in the future but who may have limited or no prior experience with education abroad program design or leadership.

UK students bring home new perspectives after global sport experience

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 24, 2025) — The gleam of the expansive soccer stadium bleachers beneath a crystal blue South African sky may have been far from Kentucky, but University of Kentucky students who traveled there as part of a new education abroad experience say the lessons hit close to home.