Franda worked out of research and foundation offices in Asia for 19 years, many of them as an Associate of the American Universities Field Staff (headquartered at Dartmouth College) and as Senior Fellow and Director of the American Institute of Indian Studies (then headquartered at the University of Pennsylvania). From 1980 to 1983 he directed the Institute of World Affairs (founded by Maude Miner Hadden, Thomas Watson and others) in Salisbury Connecticut, subsequently joining The Asia Foundation, first as Representative for Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam (1983-1986) and, later, as head of the Foundation office in Washington, D. C. (1986-1988). During the academic year 1988-1989 Franda was President of World College in California (the World College movement was founded by Lord Mountbatten, Armand Hammer, and Laurence Rockefeller). From 1989 to 1999 he was the University of Maryland’s Director of International Affairs.

Dr. Franda is the author, co-author or editor of 24 books and more than a hundred articles in the fields of political economy, comparative politics, international relations, diplomacy, and the politics of information technology development. Portions of his books have been translated and published in Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi, Russian, Italian, German, French and Spanish. His most recent books are The United Nations in the 21st Century: Management and Reform Processes in a Troubled International Organization (Rowman and Littlefield, forthcoming 2006) and three books on information technology: 1) China and India Online:  Information Technology Politics and Diplomacy in the World's Largest Nations (Rowman and Littlefield, 2002); 2) Launching into Cyberspace:  Internet Development and Politics in Five World Regions (Lynne Rienner, 2002) and 3)Governing the Internet:  The Emergence of an International Regime (Lynne Rienner Press, 2001). Previous writings include studies of Bangladesh: The First Decade; The Seychelles: Unquiet Islands; Small is Politics; India's Rural Development: An Assessment of Alternatives; Population Politics in India; and Radical Politics in South Asia.

Franda has co-translated two political novels from Bengali into English, one (Panchagram ["Five Villages"]) supported by UNESCO and the other serving as the basis for the English subtitles for the Satyajit Ray film Mahanagar ("The Great City"); he has edited a volume of Punjabi short stories entitled Punjabis, War and Women.   He has appeared often on television and radio programs, including appearances, among others, on the McNeil/Lehrer Report, Agronsky and Company, CNN, and public broadcasting stations throughout the United States. In the 1970s he regularly contributed articles to The Economist (London), Newsday, and the Christian Science Monitor. He also helped organize a BBC one-hour special television biography of Indira Gandhi and organized semester-long courses on "The Indian Subcontinent: Continuity and Change" for the CBS television series "Sunrise Semester."

Formerly a Fellow of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC, Franda has served as a consultant to Morgan Guaranty Trust, Standard Oil of Indiana, Motorola Corporation, SRI International, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Rockefeller Brothers. From 1984 to 1986 he was an elected member of the Board of Governors and elected Vice-President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Thailand.  At Maryland, he has taught courses on, among other topics, the International Telecommunications Regime, Japanese Management Cultures and Technology Policy, Chinese Law and Diplomacy, the Politics of Institutional Reform, International Relations Theory, International Law, International Organizations, and International Business and Concepts of Private Authority. He helped organize the first semester-long Fulbright International Center Interdisciplinary Seminar on Russia in 1999 and directed the second semester-long seminar in this series--on Central and Eastern Europe--in 2000. Franda has served on 25 graduate student Ph.D. dissertation committees. Many of his former students are now professors or deans at universities and colleges in various parts of the world, or are in policy-making or other professional and business positions.

Dr. Franda has had experience developing university projects with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and other U.S. government agencies, the World Bank, the InterAmerican Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and a number of private foundations and donors. While at The Asia Foundation, he was intimately involved with the Foundation's support of the American Political Science Association's Congressional Fellowship Program for Asia and with the Foundation's support of the Harvard University Nieman Journalism Fellows Program for Asia. The projects he has helped initiate at Maryland include the Center for International Business Education and Research (a national resource center funded by Title VI of the US Education Act); the Japan Technological Affairs Program and the "Gateway Japan" project, funded by the U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission and the Center for Global Partnership of the Japan Foundation; the "Russian Littoral Project," a joint undertaking of the University of Maryland and the Johns Hopkins University, funded by the MacArthur Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, and a number of other private foundations, led by Karen Dawisha; the Maryland/Mexico Resource Center at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico in Mexico City; the Institutional Reform and the Informal Sector (IRIS) Project, founded by Mancur Olson and funded by USAID, the World Bank, and other government and international agencies and private foundations; and, in collaboration with Harriet Fulbright and others, the building of the Fulbright International Center on the College Park campus.

Franda has held a number of positions in public affairs organizations, including terms on the Boards of Directors of the United States Educational (Fulbright) Foundation in India and the Bi-National Fulbright Board for Thailand, the Governing Council of the Siam Society, the Board of Governors of the Sino-American Cultural Society in Washington, D. C., the International Business Committee of the Maryland Chamber of Commerce, the Executive Committee and Board of Governors of the Association for International Education Administrators, the Board of Directors of the University of Chicago Alumni Association in San Francisco, the Rotary International Education Committee, and the Advisory Boards of Women's World Banking and the International Law Association in Bangkok. From 1996-98 he was Executive Secretary of the American Association for Chinese Studies and from 1994-98 Executive Secretary of the Mid-Atlantic chapter of the Korea America Friendship Society. He has also served as a member of a number of public affairs committees--at the state, national and international levels--including almost ten years as a member of the Maryland Marketing Roundtable of the State of Maryland's International Division and five years as Corporate Secretary of University Research Corporation International (URCI), a non-stock, nonprofit corporation organized by the Maryland Board of Regents to promote and implement scientific research. He has led Study Groups on Bangladesh for the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and the World Bank in Washington, DC and has served as a lecturer at the Foreign Service Institute and the National War College. He was recently a reviewer for USAID's Strategic Plan and on the Advisory Committee for the United States Information Agency's Study on the Future of the Fulbright Program. Franda played a lead role on the Organizing Committee for the 1st International Conference on Chinese Calligraphy Education, sponsored by the Chinese Calligraphy Education Association, and was on the Advisory Board for the 2nd Conference, held in Long Beach, California in 2000. He was also a member of the Hosting Committee for the World Federation of International Music Competitions, held in Washington, D. C. in 2000.

Among honors received by Dr. Franda are fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, Ford Foundation, Carnegie Foundation, National Science Foundation, and National Endowment for the Humanities.   Franda received the national Shell Oil Company Award for Excellence in Teaching while at Colgate University in 1968.  In 1983 he was chosen to deliver the Snyder Lectures at the University of Toronto and in 1989 the Commencement Address at Sonoma State University. In 1986 he was appointed by his Majesty, the King of Thailand, an Officer in the Most Noble Order of the Crown of Thailand. In 1999 he was awarded the Distinguished Service Citation--the highest honor given to Beloit College Alumni--for outstanding lifetime achievements and service--and in 2001 the "Landmark Award" of the University of Maryland at College Park for "unprecedented contributions to the international life of the university."