About the Program:
The Radcliffe Fellowship Program awards 50 fellowships each academic year. 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.
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.
We welcome proposals relevant to the Institute’s focus areas, which include:
- 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.
- 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
Interdisciplinary exchange is a hallmark of the Radcliffe fellowship. We welcome proposals that take advantage of our uniquely diverse intellectual community by engaging with concepts and ideas that cross disciplinary boundaries.
Eligibility
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 2022 for the 2024-25 fellowship year).
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 2022 for the 2024-25 fellowship year).
2. Have published at least five articles in refereed journals. Most science, engineering, and math fellows have published dozens of articles.
** 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 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 published at least 20 poems in the last five years or published a book of poetry, 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.
Application Deadline
For applicants in the humanities, social sciences, and creative arts: Your complete application, including letters of recommendation, should be submitted by Thursday, September 14, 2023 (11:59 PM EST).
For applicants in science, engineering, and mathematics: Your complete application, including letters of recommendation, should be submitted by Thursday, October 5, 2023 (11:59 PM EST).