Radcliffe Institute Fellowship (2025–2026 application)

The Radcliffe Institute Fellowship Program annually selects and supports 50 leading artists and scholars who have both exceptional promise and demonstrated accomplishments.

Please check back in Spring 2024 for 2025–2026 fellowship application information.

Applicants may apply as individuals or in a group of two to three people working on the same project. We seek diversity along many dimensions, including discipline, career stage, race and ethnicity, country of origin, gender and sexual orientation, and ideological perspective. Although our fellows come from many different backgrounds, they are united by their demonstrated excellence, collegiality, and creativity.

We welcome applications from a broad range of fields and perspectives. The strength of our fellowship program is its diversity.

The following areas are of particular interest:

• Radcliffe supports engaged scholarship. We welcome applications from scholars, artists, and practitioners proposing innovative work that confronts pressing social and policy issues and seeking to engage audiences beyond academia.

• We welcome proposals relevant to the Institute’s focus areas, which include:
• Law, education, and justice
• Climate change and its human impacts, especially projects that address the disproportionate impacts of the climate crisis on marginalized or under-resourced communities
• Legacies of slavery 
• Reflecting Radcliffe’s unique history and institutional legacy, we welcome proposals that focus on women, gender, and society or draw on the Schlesinger Library’s rich collections. 

• Reflecting Radcliffe’s unique history and institutional legacy, we welcome proposals that focus on women, gender, and society or draw on the Schlesinger Library’s rich collections. 

• Interdisciplinary exchange is a hallmark of the Radcliffe Fellowship, and we welcome proposals that take advantage of our uniquely diverse intellectual community by engaging with concepts and ideas that cross disciplinary boundaries.

Evaluation Criteria

Applications are evaluated on the quality and significance of the proposed project and the applicant's intellectual and creative capacity, as evidenced by a strong record of achievement or extraordinary promise. We seek diversity along every dimension, including geography, ethnicity and race, stage in career, and ideological perspective.

Each application is reviewed in a two-tiered process–first by experts in the relevant field, then by a multidisciplinary committee charged with selecting a diverse class of fellows of the highest achievement and potential. Project proposals should be original, well-conceived and developed, accurately described, and feasible.

As a uniquely multidisciplinary community, we highly value collegiality and openness to cross-disciplinary conversation. Evidence of collaborative and/or multidisciplinary work is a valued addition to the application.

Applicants will be notified of the results of the selection process by the end of March 2025.

Program Details

Harvard Radcliffe Institute fellows are in residence for a period of nine months from September 1, 2025 through May 31, 2026 and receive a stipend of $78,000 plus an additional $5,000 to cover project expenses. Fellows are expected to be free of their regular commitments so that they may fully devote themselves to the work outlined in their proposal.

As this is a residential fellowship, fellows are expected to reside in the Greater Boston area for the duration of their fellowship. Fellows may be eligible to receive additional funds for moving expenses, childcare, and housing to aid them in making a smooth transition. Healthcare options are made available as needed.

Harvard Radcliffe Fellows receive office or studio space in Byerly Hall and full-time Harvard appointments as visiting fellows, granting them access to Harvard University's various resources, including libraries, housing, and athletic facilities. If fellows would like to hire Harvard undergraduate students as Research Partners, we will cover their hourly wages.

Fellows are expected to engage actively with the colleagues in their cohort and to participate fully as a member of the Harvard Radcliffe community. To this end, all fellows present their work-in-progress, either in the form of a private talk for their cohort or a public lecture, in addition to attending the presentations of all other fellows during that academic year (up to two talks per week). We offer group lunches and other opportunities to connect with members of your cohort, but attendance at these is optional.