External Fellowship Opportunities

Humboldt Research Fellowship for Experienced Researchers
Funding Source: Alexander von Humboldt Foundation

The Humboldt Research Fellowship for researchers of all nationalities and research areas: We support you – postdoctoral and experienced researchers – with your research in Germany.

Through the Humboldt Research Fellowship, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation sponsors researchers with above-average qualifications from across the globe. As a fellow, you will benefit from individual support from the Humboldt Foundation and our diverse sponsorship portfolio.

Humboldt Research Fellowship for Early Assistant Professors
Funding Source: Alexander von Humboldt Foundation

A Humboldt Research Fellowship for postdoctoral researchers allows you to carry out long-term research (6-24 months) in Germany. Applicants choose their own topic of research and their academic host.

Scientists and scholars of all nationalities and disciplines may apply to the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation online at any time. In recent years, approximately 25% to 30% of applications were successful. Short-term study visits, participation in congresses and training courses cannot be financed.

Sloan Research Fellowship
Funding Source: Alfred Sloan Foundation

These two-year fellowships are awarded yearly to 126 researchers in recognition of distinguished performance and a unique potential to make substantial contributions to their field.

American Association of University Women Fellowships
Funding Source: American Association of University Women

The AAUW is excited to announce nearly $5 million in funding to more than 260 fellows and grantees in the 2021-22 award year. Due to the longstanding, generous contributions of AAUW members, a broader community of women continues to gain access to educational and economic opportunities — breaking through barriers so that all women have a fair chance.

ACLS Fellowship
Funding Source: American Council of Learned Societies

ACLS invites research applications from scholars in all disciplines of the humanities and related social sciences. Faculty appointments are not required. The ultimate goal of the project should be a major piece of scholarly work by the applicant, which can take the form of a monograph, articles, digital publication(s), critical edition, or other scholarly resources. The ACLS Fellowship program does not fund creative work (e.g., novels or films), textbooks, straightforward translation, or pedagogical projects.

Title VIII Research Scholar Program
Funding Source: American Councils for International Education

Funded by the U.S. Department of State’s Program for Research and Training on Eastern Europe and the Independent States of the Former Soviet Union (Title VIII), the American Councils Research Scholar Program provides full support for graduate students, faculty, and independent scholars seeking to conduct in-country, independent research for three consecutive months to nine consecutive months in Russia, Eurasia, and Eastern Europe.

Center for Advanced Studies in Behavior Sciences (CASBS) Fellowship
Funding Source: Center for Advanced Studies in Behavior Sciences – Stanford University

The Center offers a residential fellowship program for scholars working in diverse disciplines that contribute to advancing research and thinking in social science. Fellows represent the core social and behavioral sciences (anthropology, economics, history, political science, psychology, and sociology) but also the humanities, education, linguistics, communications, and the biological, natural, health, and computer sciences.

Scholar Grants
Funding Source: Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange

The Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange (CCKF; hereafter referred to as the Foundation) was established in 1989 in memory of the late President of the Republic of China, Chiang Ching-kuo (1910-1988). Operational funds come from interest generated from an endowment donated by both the public and private sectors.

The Foundation is deeply committed to its mission of encouraging scholars at academic institutions throughout the world to undertake research projects in the humanities and social sciences that can shed new light on Chinese culture and society, as well as engage in international cooperation and exchange.

Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship
Funding Source: Council on Foreign Relations

Established in 1967, the International Affairs Fellowship (IAF) is the hallmark fellowship program of CFR. It aims to bridge the gap between the study and making of U.S. foreign policy by creating the next generation of scholar-practitioners. The program offers its fellows the unique chance to experience a new field and gain a different perspective at a pivotal moment in their careers. Academics are thus placed in public service and policy-oriented settings, while government officials are placed in scholarly settings. Over the years, the IAF program has produced approximately six hundred alumni that span the who’s who of the U.S. foreign policy community, including a former secretary and several undersecretaries of state, U.S. ambassadors to NATO and the United Nations, and many other influential leaders in government, academia, and the private sector.

Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship in International Economics
Funding Source: Council on Foreign Relations

The International Affairs Fellowship (IAF) in International Economics, sponsored by Kimberly Querrey, offers business economists as well as university-based economics scholars hands-on experience in the U.S. government to expand their range of thinking and work on international economic policy. Possible host placements for the fellowship appointment include but are not limited to the Federal Reserve Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the U.S. Department of Commerce, and relevant parts of the White House. The IAF in International Economics aims to enrich the teaching, scholarship, and research of academics, inform the practice of business economists, and expose policymakers to cutting-edge scholarly research and academic debates.

POSCO Visiting Fellowship
Funding Source: East-West Center

The POSCO Visiting Fellowship Program, endowed by POSCO, is intended to promote research activities on Korean topics at the East-West Center.  The program invites outstanding scholars and policymakers to engage in policy-relevant, contemporary research on political, security, and economic issues in Northeast Asia, as they relate to Korea.

Fernand Braudel Senior Fellowship
Funding Source: European University Institute

Fernand Braudel Senior Fellowships provide a framework for established academics with an international reputation to pursue their research at the EUI. Fellowships last for up to ten months in one of the EUI's four Departments which in turn invite fellows to participate in departmental activities (seminars, workshops, colloquia, etc.).

Fellows are encouraged to make contact with researchers sharing their academic interests, may be involved in the teaching and thesis supervision tasks of EUI professors, and associated with one of the research projects being carried out at the EUI.

Jean Monnet Fellowship
Funding Source: European University Institute

The Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (RSCAS) offers one-year Jean Monnet Fellowships to scholars who have obtained their doctorate more than five years prior to the start of the fellowship. The Fellowship program is open to post-docs, tenure track academics, and those wishing to spend their sabbatical at the Robert Schuman Centre. The Centre offers up to 20 Fellowships a year.

U.S. Fulbright Scholar Program
Funding Source: Fulbright Scholar Program

The U.S. Fulbright Scholar Program offers nearly 470 teaching, research, or combination teaching/research awards in over 125 countries. Opportunities are available for college and university faculty and administrators as well as for professionals, artists, journalists, scientists, lawyers, independent scholars, and many others. In addition to several new program models designed to meet the changing needs of U.S. academics and professionals, Fulbright is offering more opportunities for flexible, multi-country grants.

Mellon Fellowship for Assistant Professors
Funding Source: Institute for Advanced Study – School of Historical Studies

The School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study, with the support of the Andrew Mellon Foundation, established a program of one-year memberships for assistant professors at universities and colleges in the United States and Canada to support promising young scholars who have embarked on professional careers. While at the Institute, they will be expected to engage exclusively in scholarly research and writing.

The School supports approximately three scholars each year under the auspices of the Mellon Fellowships for Assistant Professors. Appointments are for one academic year from September 1st until July 31st, and will carry all the privileges of Membership at the Institute for Advanced Study. The stipend will normally match the combined salary and benefits at the Member's home institution at the time of application, but the amount offered will be adjusted in the event the scholar receives simultaneous support from other sources.

Institute for Advanced Study Visiting Scholars
Funding Source: Institute for Advanced Study – School of Social Science

Each year, between 20 and 25 scholars are selected as Members in the School of Social Science. A completed doctorate or equivalent is required by the application deadline. Memberships are awarded at both the junior and senior levels. They are for the full academic year only unless the scholar is from a country with an academic calendar that is substantially different than the one in the U.S., in which case we will consider single-term Memberships. Scholars may be considered for a second residency if a sufficient amount of time has passed since their initial Membership.

National Poverty Fellows Program

Funding Source: Institute for Research on Poverty

The National Poverty Fellows Program is a federal government-university partnership that seeks to build the capacity of researchers to conduct high-quality policy-relevant research on poverty and inequality in the United States and to contribute to the effective use of research and scientific knowledge in the formation of public policy.

Research Fellowships and Grants
Funding Source: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum

The John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, the nonprofit organization that supports the federal John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, offers research fellowships and grants every year to support scholars who need to use the archival holdings of the JFK Library.

The United States and Canada Competition
Funding Source: John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation

Guggenheim Fellowships are intended for individuals who have already demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts.

Fellowships are awarded through two annual competitions: one open to citizens and permanent residents of the United States and Canada, and the other open to citizens and permanent residents of Latin America and the Caribbean. Candidates must apply to the Guggenheim Foundation in order to be considered in either of these competitions.

Kluge Fellowship in Digital Studies
Funding Source: Library of Congress – The John W. Kluge Center

The Kluge Fellowship in Digital Studies provides an opportunity for scholars to examine the impact of the digital revolution on society, culture, and international relations using the Library's collections and resources.

Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship Program (for early career assistant professors)
Funding Source: National Academy of Education

The National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship Program supports 30 early career scholars working in critical areas of education research. These fellowships support non-residential postdoctoral proposals that make significant scholarly contributions to the field of education. The program also develops the careers of its recipients through professional development activities involving National Academy of Education members.

Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellowship
Funding Source: National Endowment for Democracy

Named in honor of NED’s principal founders, former president Ronald Reagan and the late congressman Dante Fascell (D-Fl.), the Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows Program is a federally funded, international exchange program that offers democracy activists, journalists, civil society leaders, and scholars from around the world the opportunity to spend five months in residence at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), in Washington, D.C., in order to undertake independent research on democracy in a particular country or region. Located within NED’s International Forum for Democratic Studies, a leading center for analysis of global democratic developments, the program provides a collegial environment and rich intellectual setting for educational exchange and professional development.

National Endowment for the Humanities Grants
Funding Source: National Endowment for the Humanities

NEH offers a variety of grant programs to individuals and organizations that do the highest quality work to promote the humanities. Use the search tools to find the grant program that helps you accomplish your goals in enhancing the humanities.

National Humanities Center Fellowship
Funding Source: National Humanities Center

Most of the Center’s fellowships are unrestricted. Several, however, are designated for particular areas of research, including fellowships for environmental studies, English literature, art history, Asian studies, theology, and for early-career female philosophers. The Center also invites applicants from scholars in interdisciplinary fields, including African-American studies, area studies, bioethics, cultural studies, history of science and technology, film and media studies.

Institute for Advanced Study Faculty Fellowship
Funding Source: Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study

The Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study (NDIAS) is dedicated to fostering and supporting integrative scholarship addressing ultimate questions at the intersection of the arts, engineering, the humanities, law, and the formal, natural, and social sciences, especially those that transcend disciplinary boundaries.

The NDIAS encourages scholars to include questions of values in their analyses, to integrate diverse disciplines, and to ask how their findings advance civilization. The Institute offers its fellows the opportunity to engage not only in analysis but also in evaluating what should be done, to analyze the world in substantive and collaborative ways, and to think through the implications of present behavior for the future of the world.

Open Society Fellowship
Funding Source: Open Society Foundation

The Open Society Fellowship was founded in 2008 to support individuals pursuing innovative and unconventional approaches to fundamental open society challenges. The fellowship funds work that will enrich public understanding of those challenges and stimulate far-reaching and probing conversations within the Open Society Foundations and in the world.

The Open Society Fellowship invites proposals responding to a specific proposition or provocation relevant to the work of the Foundations. Applicants are currently invited to address new and radical approaches to fight economic inequality.

Lone Mountain Fellowship
Funding Source: Property and Environment Research Center (PERC)

The Lone Mountain Fellowship offers a unique opportunity for scholars, journalists, policymakers, conservation leaders, and environmentalists to undertake a project of their choosing that advances our understanding of the role of markets, innovation, and property rights in protecting and enhancing environmental resources. Lone Mountain Fellows are in residency at PERC in Bozeman, Montana, for the duration of their fellowships.

The Lone Mountain Fellowship will provide you with a chance to network with leaders in diverse fields of study related to free market environmentalism. The atmosphere is appealing to people who are careful thinkers, have an ability to communicate with non-technical audiences, and have a strong compassion for humanity. Fellows work in a congenial, stimulating work environment in a locale of unparalleled natural beauty.

Radcliffe Institute Fellowship Program
Funding Source: Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study – Harvard University

Each of the more than 900 fellows who have been in residence at the Radcliffe Institute has pursued an independent project, but the collaborative experience unites all of them. Scholars, scientists, and artists work on individual projects, or in clusters, to generate new research, publications, art, and more.

Russell Sage Visiting Scholars Program
Funding Source: Russell Sage Foundation

The Russell Sage Foundation's Visiting Scholars Program provides a unique opportunity for select scholars in the social, economic and behavioral sciences to pursue their research and writing while in residence at the Foundation’s New York headquarters. Research carried out by Visiting Scholars constitutes an important part of the Foundation’s ongoing effort to analyze and understand the complex and shifting nature of social and economic life in the United States.

The Berlin Prize
Funding Source: The American Academy in Berlin

The American Academy in Berlin seeks to enrich transatlantic dialogue in the arts, humanities, and public policy through developing and communicating projects of the highest scholarly merit. Past recipients have included anthropologists, art historians, literary scholars, philosophers, historians, musicologists, journalists, writers, filmmakers, sociologists, legal scholars, economists, and public policy experts, among others.

Affiliated Fellowships
Funding Source: The American Academy in Rome

The American Academy in Rome hosts recipients of fellowships awarded by educational and cultural organizations around the world. Affiliated Fellows add to the diversity of the Academy’s artistic and scholarly community. Affiliated Fellowships are coordinated by the organizations for which they are named. Interested candidates must apply through the organization.

The American-Scandinavian Foundation Fellowships and Grants
Funding Source: The American-Scandinavian Foundation

The American-Scandinavian Foundation (ASF) is a publicly supported nonprofit organization that promotes international understanding through educational and cultural exchange between the U.S. and the Nordic countries.

New Directions Fellowship
Funding Source: The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Serious interdisciplinary research often requires established scholar-teachers to pursue formal substantive and methodological training in addition to the PhD. New Directions Fellowships assist faculty members in the humanities and humanistic social sciences who seek to acquire systematic training outside their own areas of special interest. The program is intended to enable scholars in the humanities to work on problems that interest them most, at an appropriately advanced level of sophistication. In addition to facilitating the work of individual faculty members, these awards should benefit scholarship in the humanities more generally by encouraging the highest standards in cross-disciplinary research.

Postdoctoral Fellowship (for early career assistant professors)
Funding Source: The Ford Foundation – The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Postdoctoral fellowships will be awarded in a national competition administered by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on behalf of the Ford Foundation. The awards will be made to individuals who, in the judgment of the review panels, have demonstrated superior academic achievement, are committed to a career in teaching and research at the college or university level, show promise of future achievement as scholars and teachers, and are well prepared to use diversity as a resource for enriching the education of all students.

Getty Scholar Grants
Funding Source: The Getty Foundation

Getty Scholar Grants are for established scholars, or writers who have attained distinction in their fields. Recipients are in residence at the Getty Research Institute or Getty Villa, where they pursue their own projects free from academic obligations, make use of Getty collections, join their colleagues in a weekly meeting devoted to an annual research theme, and participate in the intellectual life of the Getty.

Harvard Academy Scholars Program
Funding Source: The Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies

The Academy Scholars Program identifies and supports outstanding scholars at the start of their careers whose work combines disciplinary excellence in the social sciences or law with a command of the language and history or culture of countries or regions outside of the United States or Canada. Their scholarship may elucidate domestic, comparative, or transnational issues, past or present.

The Academy Scholars are a select community of individuals with resourcefulness, initiative, curiosity, and originality, whose work in cultures or regions outside of the US or Canada shows promise as a foundation for exceptional careers in major universities or international institutions.

Academy Scholars are appointed for a two-year, in-residence, postdoctoral fellowship at The Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. They receive substantial financial and research assistance to undertake sustained projects of research and/or acquire accessory training in their chosen fields and areas. The Senior Scholars, a distinguished group of senior Harvard University faculty members, act as mentors to the Academy Scholars to help them achieve their intellectual potential.

Bellagio Center Residency Programs
Funding Source: The Rockefeller Foundation

The Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, through a combination of conferences and residency programs, advances the thought leadership and action-oriented work of scholars, artists, thought leaders, policymakers, and practitioners, furthering the Foundation’s pioneering mission to “promote the well-being of humanity around the world.” The Center has a strong interest in proposals that align with this mission, particularly through issues that have a direct impact on the lives of poor and vulnerable populations around the world. These issues include but are not limited to health, economic opportunity and jobs, urban resiliency, food and agriculture, clean energy, the field of philanthropy, and innovation for development.

Abe Fellowship Program
Funding Source: The Social Science Research Council

The Abe Fellowship Program encourages international multidisciplinary research on topics of pressing global concern. The program fosters the development of a new generation of researchers interested in policy-relevant topics and willing to become key members of a bilateral and global research network. In partnership with the SSRC, the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership (CGP) established the Abe Fellowship Program as its flagship program in 1991. The Abe Fellowship Program now includes three core elements: the Abe Fellowship, the Abe Fellowship for Journalists, and the Abe Fellows Global Forum (Abe Global).

Abe Fellowship for Journalists
Funding Source: The Social Science Research Council

The Abe Fellowship for Journalists is designed to encourage in-depth coverage of topics of pressing concern to the United States and Japan through individual short-term policy-related projects.

Jennings Randolph Senior Fellowship Program
Funding Source: United States Institute of Peace

From 1986 to today, USIP’s Jennings Randolph Senior Fellowship program has supported research, writing and in-house advising on a wide variety of topics related to peace and violent conflict. The program's more than 320 past fellows have studied everything from the influence of Track Two Diplomacy on U.S.-Russia relations to the effects of oil and other natural resources on prospects for peace.

The program supports targeted research, analysis and writing that is closely integrated with the work and priorities of the Institute, with high flexibility in terms of fellowship opportunities. Calls for fellowship applications affiliated with specific USIP centers and programs are issued throughout the year, and can be found on the Fellowship Program webpages, along with application directions and links to appropriate templates.

Erskine Programme
Funding Source: University of Canterbury

The Erskine Programme Office administers Visiting Erskine Fellowships and Grants, Visiting Canterbury Fellowships and Grants, the Cambridge/Canterbury Exchange Programme and the Oxford/Canterbury Exchange Programme.

The bequest by John Angus Erskine enables up to 70 visiting international senior academics to lecture at UC each year to undergraduates and postgraduate students (Erskine Fellowship). Around 25 UC academics are also awarded grants which enables them to travel to overseas institutions to enhance their skills and knowledge (Erskine Grants). Erskine Programme Fellowships are teaching fellowships, not research fellowships, and intended for more senior academics.

Ciriacy-Wantrup Postdoctoral Fellowship
Funding Source: University of California, Berkeley

For the purposes of this fellowship, natural resources are defined broadly to include environmental resources. The fellowship encourages, but is not limited to, policy-oriented research. Applications are open to scholars from any social science discipline, and related professional fields such as law and planning, who will make significant contributions to research on natural resource economics broadly defined. Preference will be given to proposals whose orientation is broadly institutional and/or historical, and which are conceptually and theoretically innovative. Proposals whose primary emphasis is on advancing statistical or econometric theory are not eligible for consideration.

University of Michigan Society of Fellows
Funding Source: University of Michigan

Each Fellow has a three-year appointment as Assistant Professor in an affiliated department of the University and a three-year appointment as a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Society of Fellows. This appointment is not tenure-track. Fellows are eligible for participation in the University health, dental, and life insurance programs. Each fellow is expected to teach the equivalent of one academic year, i.e., a total of two terms during the period of the fellowship. Any subsequent appointment of a Fellow to a position at the University of Michigan would be subject to the rules governing new appointments.

Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Fellowship on Southeast Asia
Funding Source: Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center

The Lee Kong Chian Fellowship is the core of the Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Initiative on Southeast Asia, a joint effort established in 2007 by the National University of Singapore and Stanford University to raise the visibility, extent, and quality of scholarship on contemporary Southeast Asia. The infrastructure for research pursued through the fellowship is provided by the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at NUS and the Southeast Asia Program in the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) at Stanford.

Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford fellows spend two to four months at NUS and two to four months at Stanford, writing and conducting research on, or related to, contemporary Southeast Asia. One or two candidates may be awarded fellowships each year. Fellows have opportunities to present their research and participate in seminars and workshops organized by relevant campus units. Exposure to the two universities and their scholars and resources enrich and diversify collegial feedback on the fellows’ research projects and facilitate intellectual exchange and networking on both sides of the Pacific.

Wenner-Gren Hunt Postdoctoral Fellowship (for early career assistant professors)
Funding Source: Wenner-Gren Foundation

By providing funds for scholars to devote themselves full-time to writing, the Foundation aims to enable a new generation of scholars to publish significant works that will impact the development of anthropology. The program contributes to the Foundation's overall mission to support basic research in anthropology and to ensure that the discipline continues to be a source of vibrant and significant work that furthers our understanding of humanity's cultural and biological origins, development, and variation. The Foundation supports research that demonstrates a clear link to anthropological theory and debates, and promises to make a solid contribution to advancing these ideas. There is no preference for any methodology, research location, or subfield. The Foundation particularly welcomes proposals that employ a comparative perspective, can generate innovative approaches or ideas, and/or integrate two or more subfields.

Whiting Public Engagement Program
Funding Source: Whiting Foundation

The Whiting Public Engagement Programs, including the Public Engagement Fellowship and the Public Engagement Seed Grant, are designed to celebrate and empower humanities faculty who embrace public engagement as part of the scholarly vocation. The programs fund ambitious, often collaborative projects to infuse into public life the richness, profundity, and nuance that give the humanities their lasting value. Over time, we hope the program will also build a community of faculty dedicated to this form of service; underscore just how essential the realm of ideas is in helping us absorb the news of the day, participate as citizens, and live a full life; and ultimately help to restore broader faith in the value of advanced work in the humanities.