Sovereign Bank signs agreement to fund international programs

Sovereign Bank signed a three-year agreement with the University in July, effective immediately, to help support international academic initiatives.

The initiatives include the University’s Global Collaborative Networks, which allow any University scholar to collaborate with centers of learning around the world. The agreement will sponsor up to three Global Collaborative Network grants for terms lasting up to three years.

Sovereign Bank, which is a subsidiary of Banco Santander, will also provide funding for study abroad programs and the University’s Global Seminar initiative.

Additionally, some of the funding awarded through this agreement will support the Visiting Student Research Collaborators, allowing international graduate students at other universities to conduct research with University faculty for up to one year.

“More and more students and faculty are clamoring for precisely these kinds of opportunities, so we are grateful for Sovereign Bank’s vision and commitment to international learning,” Jeremy Adelman, director of Princeton’s Council for International Teaching and Research, said in a statement.

Banco Santander Chairman Emilio Botin said in a statement that he these initiatives would enrich students’ cultural and academic lives and provide them with the global perspective necessary to make an impact beyond their local communities.

“Fostering academic excellence through international collaboration, innovation, creative learning and research is a keystone of Santander’s corporate social responsibility initiatives,” he said.

The University’s associate provost for International Initiatives, Diana Davies, noted in an email that the various collaborations made possible through the agreement are not limited to any one academic field. In addition, she described the gift from Sovereign Bank as “particularly generous because it allows Princeton to pursue important international activities without requiring the involvement of particular partner institutions or countries.”

The agreement is supported by the bank’s Santander Universities Global Division, a network that connects over 900 universities worldwide. The Division plans to allocate 600 million euros to finance university projects and partnership agreements through local affiliates such as Sovereign Bank over the next five years, according to the Division’s website.

The University’s collaboration with Sovereign Bank is a part of a set of initiatives proposed by President Shirley Tilghman and Provost Christopher Eisgruber ’83 in fall 2007. The projects are aimed at creating an international vision for the University as “a center for a multitude of scholarly networks humming with activity and effectively responding to changes in scholarship and the vagaries of world affairs, while creatively defining the cutting edges of global research,” according to the faculty committee’s recommendations.