Harvard Radcliffe Institute Fellowship in USA 2025-2026 (Stipend up to $78,000)

Radcliffe fellows are exceptional scientists, writers, scholars, public intellectuals, and artists whose work is making a difference in their professional fields and in the larger world.

Based in Radcliffe Yard-a sanctuary in the heart of Harvard University-fellows join a uniquely interdisciplinary and creative community. A fellowship at Radcliffe is an opportunity to step away from usual routines and dive deeply into a project. With access to Harvard’s unparalleled resources, Radcliffe fellows develop new tools and methods, challenge artistic and scholarly conventions, and illuminate our past and our present.

“A year at Radcliffe was everything I could ask for. The gifts of time and space elevated the way I thought about my work. After many, many years, I felt truly free to explore my craft.”

2022–2023 Radcliffe fellow

The Radcliffe Fellowship Program awards 50 fellowships each academic year. Applicants may apply as individuals or in a group of two 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  wide range of fields and perspectives. Our fellowship program’s strength is its diversity.

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

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.

We welcome proposals relevant to the Institute’s focus areas, which include the following:

• Climate change, especially proposals addressing critical questions of impact and equity.
• Academic freedom and connecting across difference, especially proposals addressing political polarization, inequality, state regulation, and other policy issues as they relate to free inquiry at higher education institutions.

 

• Table of Content
• About Harvard University
• Harvard Radcliffe Institute Fellowship
• Aim and Benefits of Harvard Radcliffe Institute Fellowship
• Harvard Radcliffe Institute Fellowship Courses
• Requirements for Harvard Radcliffe Institute Fellowship Qualification
• Interview date, Process and Venue for Harvard Radcliffe Institute Fellowship
• Application Deadline
• How to Apply

About Harvard University

Harvard is the oldest institution of higher education in the United States, established in 1636 by vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. It was named after the College’s first benefactor, the young minister John Harvard of Charlestown, who upon his death in 1638 left his library and half his estate to the institution. A statue of John Harvard stands today in front of University Hall in Harvard Yard, and is perhaps the University’s best known landmark. Harvard University has 12 degree-granting Schools in addition to the Radcliffe Institute for Advan... continue reading

Harvard Radcliffe Institute Fellowship

Application Deadline	03 Oct 2024
Country to study	United States
School to study	Harvard Radcliffe Institute
Type	Fellowship
Course to study	View courses
Sponsor	Harvard University
Gender	Men and Women

Aim and Benefits of Harvard Radcliffe Institute Fellowship

Fellows receive a stipend of $78,000 plus an additional $5,000 to cover project expenses. Please note that if you are a US citizen or permanent resident coming from a home institution based in the US, you can opt to have your stipend paid through your home institution or to you directly.
 

Additional funding 
Harvard Radcliffe Fellows may also be eligible to receive relocation, housing, and childcare funds to aid them in making a smooth transition to Radcliffe. Healthcare support is made available as needed. If fellows would like to hire Harvard undergraduate students as Research Partners, we will cover their hourly wages.
 

Harvard Radcliffe Institute Fellowship Courses

• Creative arts
• Engineering
• Humanities
• Mathematics
• Science
• Social Sciences

Requirements for Harvard Radcliffe Institute Fellowship Qualification

Applicants cannot be students in doctoral or master's programs at the time of application submission unless the dissertation has been accepted and degree is forthcoming (and field-specific eligibility requirements have been met). Applicants must demonstrate a strong body of independent work that has been published, exhibited, or performed.

Eligibility requirements to apply for a Harvard Radcliffe Fellowship
Harvard Radcliffe Fellows demonstrate an extraordinary level of accomplishment. This is not intended to serve as a post-doctoral fellowship. Applicants must demonstrate a strong body of independent research and writing.

Applicants in the humanities and social sciences must:

1. Have received their doctorate (or appropriate terminal degree) in the area of their proposed project at least two years prior to their appointment as a fellow (December 2023 for the 2025-26 fellowship year). Appropriate terminal degrees include PhD, MD, and JD.
2. Have published a monograph or at least two articles in refereed journals or edited collections.

Applicants in science, engineering, and mathematics must:

1. Have received their doctorate in the area of the proposed project at least two years prior to their appointment as a fellow (December 2023 for the 2025-26 fellowship year).

2. Have published at least five articles in refereed journals. Most science, engineering, and math fellows have published dozens of articles.

Applicants in the creative arts must meet discipline-specific eligibility requirements, as outlined below:

• Film and Video: Applicants in this discipline must have a body of independent work of significant achievement. Such work will typically have been exhibited in galleries or museums, shown in film or video festivals, or broadcast on television.
• Visual Arts: Applicants in this discipline must show strong evidence of achievement, with a record of at least five years of work as a professional artist, including participation in several curated group shows and at least two professional solo exhibitions.
• Fiction and Nonfiction: Applicants in these disciplines must have one of the following:
  a) one or more published books;
  b) a contract for the publication of a book-length manuscript; or
  c) at least three shorter works (longer than newspaper articles) published.
• Poetry: Applicants in this discipline must have had at least 20 poems or a book of poetry published in the last five years, and must be in the process of completing a manuscript.
• Journalism: Applicants in this discipline are required to have worked professionally as a journalist for at least five years.
• Playwriting: Applicants in this discipline must have a significant body of independent work in the form. This will include, most typically, plays produced or under option.
• Music Composition: It is desirable, but not required, for applicants in music composition to have a PhD or DMA. Most importantly, the applicant must show strong evidence of achievement as a professional artist, with a record of recent performances.

Former Harvard Radcliffe fellows (1999-present) are ineligible to apply.

Applicants from throughout the world are encouraged to apply. Harvard University typically sponsors J-1 scholar visas for Harvard Radcliffe Fellows.

You do not need to be affiliated with an academic institution to be eligible to apply.

We accept group applications of no more than two individuals who, if selected, would take two fellowship spots (two stipends, two offices, etc.). Both group members must meet the eligibility requirements for their fields. The two applicants must propose to work collaboratively on the same project throughout the fellowship year.

How to apply as a group:

• Each member of the group must register as a user on the application portal and submit a separate application. At the Individual or Group question on the General Information page of the application, select Group, and list the names of both group members, including yourself, in the available fields.
• Each group member should submit an individual CV and writing sample.
• Both group members should upload the same project proposal, making special note in your proposal about the nature of your collaboration.
• We encourage applicants within a group to ask for letters from different recommenders. If there is a recommender who is well-suited to speak to your group's proposed project as a whole, or who has worked closely with both group members, they can be listed as a recommender for both group members and may upload the same letter.

Interview date, Process and Venue for Harvard Radcliffe Institute Fellowship

Each application we receive 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.

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. As a uniquely multidisciplinary community, we highly value collegiality and openness to cross-disciplinary conversation.
• Applicants will be notified of the results of the selection process by email in March 2025.
• Applicants may reapply during the next cycle.
• If you are offered another fellowship, please let us know. If you decide to accept another fellowship before our selection process has been completed, please tell us so that we may withdraw your application from consideration.
• We are unable to provide feedback on applications.
   

Application Deadlines

• For applicants in the humanities, social sciences, and creative arts: Your complete application, including letters of recommendation, should be submitted by Thursday, September 12, 2024 (11:59 PM ET).
• For applicants in science, engineering, and mathematics: Your complete application, including letters of recommendation, should be submitted by Thursday, October 3, 2024 (11:59 PM ET). 

Application Deadline

October 3, 2024

How to Apply

Interested and qualified? Go to Harvard University on radcliffe.onlineapplicationportal.com to apply

Our online application for the 2025–2026 fellowship year is now available.

The application consists of an application form, curriculum vitae, project proposal (with bibliography when appropriate), a writing or work sample, and the contact information of three references who will be prompted, via email, to upload letters of recommendation in support of your application. All materials must be submitted via our online application portal.

Applicants who have applied in the past must submit a new application.
 

How do I start an application?
Register as a new user by entering your name, email address, and password responses on the New User Registration page of the online application. Once you have registered, you may log in to the portal here and select an application area: Humanities and Social Sciences, Creative Arts (including Journalists and Nonfiction writers), or Science, Engineering, and Mathematics.

The deadline for applications in humanities, social sciences, and creative arts is September 12, 2024.

The deadline for applications in science, engineering, and mathematics is October 3, 2024.

For more details visit: Harvard Radcliffe Institute website.