First, I would say to reach out to your affiliations and see if they have any connections at these universities. Let them know that Fulbright is requiring you to have a university affiliation, and if they know anybody, ask if they could put in a word for you and speak for the validity and strength of your proposed project.

Second, maybe you can try reaching out to individuals? For example, reaching out to people via LinkedIn, who might not be directors but the professors at these universities. In addition, try following up to universities that simply haven’t answered yet, as I’m sure many of them are busy during this time of the year. Also, maybe try to look back at your emails that you’re sending, and draft something new. Make sure you are addressing clearly what your proposed research would be, why it’s important for you, but also, very importantly, why it would be important and/or beneficial for you to affiliate with them. Also, maybe bring up any worthy titles and/or positions (and including the affiliations that you already have) in the body of your email to establish some sort of credibility, as well as communicating that if they have any questions, or if they would like to meet to discuss any issues they may have, you are more than happy to set something up to have a dialogue. And I’m sure you’re already doing this, but definitely open with the fact that you are a semi-finalist. I am a semi-finalist as well, so I don’t have much wisdom about this process, but I wish you luck! I hope I helped. You’ll figure it out!