Applications for the Joan Shorenstein Fellowship Program 2024 are now being accepted. The Joan Shorenstein Fellowship Programme is intended to bring journalists, researchers, politicians, and policymakers to the Shorenstein Center for a semester to work on a project with a measurable outcome, as well as connect with students, professors, other fellows, and the larger Harvard Kennedy School community.
While in residence, fellows are expected to be actively engaged members of the Shorenstein Center community, attending and participating in Center programs, social gatherings, and other activities. Alumni fellows join the Shorenstein Center’s Alumni Fellows Network to remain in touch with the Center and the Center’s broad and expanding network of former fellows worldwide.
Benefits:
- Fellows receive a stipend, paid in monthly installments at the end of each month of their term. Travel, housing, and living expenses are not covered by the Shorenstein Center.
- Fellows are provided with a desk in the Shorenstein Center offices, a Harvard email address, and a Harvard ID allowing access to libraries and other resources.
- Fellows are also able to select a paid Harvard Kennedy School student research assistant (eligible to work up to 10 hours per week) to help with their projects.
Eligibility:
- Career professionals from a variety of related fields are welcome to apply. Past fellows include journalists from local, national and international TV, radio, print, and digital media; media and civic technology innovators; nonfiction authors; documentary filmmakers; political advisors and policymakers; leading academic scholars in fields such as media research and political science; and policy analysts.
- The Shorenstein Center is committed to diversity, and actively encourages applications from all demographic backgrounds, and across the political spectrum.
The guidelines below offer further detail on the types of experience that lead to a successful application and fellowship experience.
- Journalist: Reporters, editors, columnists, producers, media business executives and related, with aminimum of ten years of full-time experience either at professional news organizations or as a full-time freelancer (not including work completed as a university student).
- Politician: Someone who has been elected to a national or high-level state office, or high-level communications professionals within politics and policy, e.g. speechwriters, press secretaries. Minimum of ten years experience (can be cumulative between elected office and other roles).
- Scholar: Tenured or tenure-track professoremployed by a college, university or research institution in political science, political communication, journalism, technology studies, sociology, computer science, or a field relevant to the Shorenstein Center’s areas of inquiry.
- Policymaker: High-level official in a cabinet office, or policy adviser to a candidate for national office or high-level elected official.
- Documentary Filmmaker: Documentary filmmakers and/or academics and practitioners with expertise in documentary filmmaking as it relates to public interest media, and/or its intersections with journalism. Minimum of 10 years experience.
- Applicants should not have participated in another fellowship within the two years prior to their preferred semester.
- Applicants must be fluent in English – listening, reading, writing and speaking. Non-native English speakers must provide TOEFL or IELTS score.
Expectations:
Applicants must be available to be in residence, full-time, for the duration of their fellowship (Fall Semester: September through December, Spring Semester: February through May, or Full Year: September through May) in Cambridge, MA.
The Fellowship is a full-time appointment, and applicants are expected to commit to the work of completing their primary research project and engaging in the life of the Center, its activities and events. It is understood that busy modern professionals will have occasional essential obligations, and the Center aims to be considerate and flexible in such circumstances. However, any applicant with professional, personal or travel commitments that would require significant time away should consider applying when their schedule allows for the full commitment of a fellowship.
