ICDG held its first study abroad program for University of Georgia undergraduate students in May 2004 and has repeated the program each year since.

The 2004 and 2005 programs took students to Ukraine to understand public policy—with a special focus on public health—in a transitional society. The Ukraine Study Abroad program provided an opportunity for students to learn firsthand about Ukraine's transition to democracy and a market economy. It utilized an active engagement approach that took students into four different cities and provided them with the opportunity to talk directly with government officials, government managers, managers of nonprofit organizations, physicians, pharmacists, hospital administrators, and health ministry officials as well as citizens from different walks of life and other students. The participants visited workplaces, offices, hospitals, clinics, medical schools, pharmacies, public infrastructures, and homes. The Ukraine Study Abroad program is an opportunity for students to experience life in a transitioning economy and a fledgling democracy under stress.

In May 2006, ICDG, in partnership with the School of Public and International Affairs' Department of Political Science, offered the university's first-ever China Study Abroad program. The program took 20 undergraduates to Beijing, Shanghai, and Sichuan and focused on comparative legal systems, society in transition, and culture. The China Study Abroad provided an opportunity for students to learn firsthand about a society very different from their own but in many ways very familiar. The 2007 program will focus on democracy and dictatorship, comparative legal systems between the United States and China, and cultural and social institutions. [Video of the 2006 China Study Abroad program]

Additionally, in May 2006, ICDG cosponsored its second Croatia Study Abroad program, which immersed students in economic, rural, and community development issues. The 2007 study abroad program will focus on nationalism and ethnic conflict, culture and national identity, the conservation and interpretation of tangible and intangible cultural heritage, and public health as a societal issue in Croatia.

[Outreach Magazine coverage of the Croatia program, Winter 2007]

[Outreach Magazine coverage of the Ukraine program, Winter 2007]

[Photos from the Study Abroad program]