$1.34M Grant to Reinforce Smith’s Center for Global Business

A $1.34 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education through its Title IV Centers for International Business program will enable the Center for Global Business (CBG) at UMD’s Robert H. Smith School of Business to expand its portfolio of programs through 2026. The primary focus will involve applying lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure U.S. companies’ competitiveness into the future.

The four-year funding commitment, renewed for the sixth time at Maryland Smith, will “support research activities that contribute to a better understanding of strategies to make a business, institution or system more resilient, and on lasting changes to the business environment brought about by the pandemic,” said CGB Executive Director Rebecca Bellinger.

CGB established a foundation for the mission in 2021 through a Maryland Business Adapts initiative that celebrated five Maryland-based exporting companies for their resilience in the pandemic. It culminated in a virtual networking and learning event. The initiative, Bellinger said, “illustrated how businesses underwent severe disruptions to their supply chains and work processes but found innovative solutions and showed remarkable resilience.”

Maryland Business Adapts further reflects CGB’s “strong portfolio of export promotion programs for executives and its readiness to deliver training programs with an added focus on building greater resilience to shocks,” said Kislaya Prasad, research professor and CGB academic director.

The school additionally will apply the grant to new research, thought leadership activities, student programming, faculty development programs, capacity building for business and efforts at minority-serving institutions and community colleges.