The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at the Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the United States of America has opened applications for its 2027/2028 Fellowship Program, inviting scientists, writers, scholars, public intellectuals, and artists from around the world to apply for a year-long residential fellowship at Harvard University.
The fellowship offers participants the opportunity to pursue ambitious and innovative projects in an interdisciplinary environment while benefiting from Harvard University’s academic resources and intellectual community.
According to the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, the fellowship welcomes proposals that address pressing social, scientific, and public policy issues and seek to engage audiences beyond academia. The Institute also encourages proposals that focus on women, gender, and society or draw on the collections of the Schlesinger Library, although such topics are not required for eligibility.
Applications are also invited for proposals aligned with the Institute’s 2024–2029 multi-year focus area on academic freedom and connecting across difference. The Institute is seeking proposals that explore issues such as intellectual virtues, free and open inquiry, diversity of thought, political polarization, inequality, religious pluralism, religion and public life, and other higher education policy issues. It also welcomes proposals that challenge disciplinary orthodoxies or present innovative and transformative perspectives.
In addition, the Institute encourages proposals in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics that have been directly affected by federal research funding cuts.
The fellowship is open to applicants from a broad range of disciplines across the humanities, social sciences, creative arts, nonfiction and journalism, science, engineering, and mathematics. Applicants must meet the discipline-specific eligibility criteria. The programme is not intended as a postdoctoral fellowship, and individuals currently enrolled in a degree program are not eligible to apply. Former Harvard Radcliffe fellows who participated from 1999 onward are also ineligible.
Applicants are required to submit an application form, a curriculum vitae, a project proposal of up to 1,400 words (with a bibliography where appropriate), a writing or work sample, and the contact information of three referees who will submit letters of recommendation through the online application system.
To begin an application, applicants must register as a new user by creating a new account on the Online Fellowship Application Portal using their name, email address, and password before selecting one of the available application areas: Humanities and Social Sciences, Creative Arts, Nonfiction and Journalism, or Science, Engineering, and Mathematics.
The application deadline for the Humanities, Social Sciences, Creative Arts, and Nonfiction and Journalism categories is September 10, 2026, at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time (ET).
Applications in Science, Engineering, and Mathematics must be submitted by October 1, 2026, at 5:00 p.m. ET.
Interested applicants can click here to fill out the application and access the application link.
Click here to read about the fellowship and to fill out the information form.
Click here for more details about eligibility, disciplines, application materials, letters of recommendation, troubleshooting, the selection process, and deadline information.
