2023 Berkman Klein Fellowship Program in Journalism Innovation at Harvard University

Deadline: January 9, 2023.

The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University is now accepting fellowship applications for the 2023-2024 academic year through our open call. This opportunity is for scholars who wish to spend 2023-2024 in residence in Cambridge, MA as part of the Center’s vibrant community of research and practice, and who seek to engage in collaborative, cross-disciplinary, and cross-sectoral exploration of the Internet’s most important issues. 

The Berkman Klein Center’s fellowship program provides an opportunity for innovative thinkers and changemakers to come together to hone and share ideas, find camaraderie, and spawn new initiatives. The program encourages and supports fellows in an inviting and playful intellectual environment with community activities designed to foster inquiry and risk-taking; to identify and expose common threads across fellows’ individual activities; and to bring fellows into conversation with the students, staff, faculty, and broader community at the Berkman Klein Center. From their diverse backgrounds and wide-ranging physical and virtual travels, Berkman Klein Center fellows bring fresh ideas, skills, passion, and connections to the Center and our community, and from their time spent in Cambridge, they help build and extend new perspectives and activities back out into their home networks, communities, and fields. Fellows appointed through this open call come into their fellowship with a personal research agenda, a set of ambitions, and a sense of the public scholarship and community interactions they wish to foster while at the Center.

AFEA OF INTEREST

invite applications from scholars whose research advances Internet & society studies in the public interest. 

Alongside and in conversation with the breadth and depth of topics explored through the Center’s research projects, fellows engage the fairly limitless expanse of Internet & society issues. Within each cohort of fellows we encourage and strive for wide inquisition and focused study, and these areas of speciality and exploration vary from fellow to fellow and year to year. 

Some broad issues of interest in the coming year include (but are not limited to) fairness and justice; democracy; authoritarianism and extremism; Web3 and decentralization; trust; global Internet governance; data governance; youth, media, and child protection; sociotechnical systems for learning and connecting; human rights; equity, agency, inclusion, and diversity; digital identity; artificial intelligence; quantum computing; the metaverse; generative AI; and digital economies. We look forward to hearing from potential fellows in these nascent specialities and learning more about the impact of their work.

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

They encourage applications from scholars, practitioners, innovators, engineers, artists, and others committed to understanding and advancing the public interest. Fellows come from across the disciplinary spectrum and different life paths. 

Stipend: There are two pathways for people to be considered for the fellowship program through the open call: those who apply for funding from the Berkman Klein Center, and those who apply supported by external funding.

Applicants may opt to be considered under both funding pathways.

Research support: Fellows will have the option to hire a part-time Harvard University student research assistant during the duration of their appointment. Wages for research assistants of up to $2,500 for the year will be paid by the Berkman Klein Center.