Berkman Klein Fellowship Program

About Berkman Klein Fellowship Program

“The mission of the Berkman Klein Center is to explore and understand cyberspace; to study its development, dynamics, norms, and standards; and to assess the need for laws and sanctions.” We are a research institution founded on the assumption that what we want to learn is not documented. Our approach is to expand into cyberspace, collect data as we go, self-study, and share. “Our model is entrepreneurial nonprofit.” —The BKC Mission. The Berkman Klein Center’s fellowship program brings together brilliant thinkers and changemakers to hone and exchange ideas, build community, and spark new projects. The program encourages and supports fellows in an inviting and playful intellectual environment with community activities designed to foster inquiry and risk-taking; identify and expose common threads across fellows’ activities; and bring fellows into conversation with the Berkman Klein Center’s students, staff, faculty, and broader community. Berkman Klein Center fellows bring new ideas, skills, passion, and connections to the Center and our community, and their time in Cambridge helps build and extend new perspectives and activities back into their home networks, communities, and fields. Fellows selected through this open call arrive at the center with a personal research agenda, a set of goals, and a vision for the public scholarship and community connections they hope to develop.

Producing a Project That Contributes to Public Scholarship:

Fellows are expected to create at least one public output that influences and informs scholarly and public debates in the fields in which they study. These outputs could take a variety of forms, including:

• technical or design prototype(s)
• public writing, such as long-form pieces, op-eds, blog posts, or interviews
• convenings organized and led by the fellow
• reports or white papers
• a website or other online resource
• academic writing, such as a research paper

Qualifications

• Some of them are academics. We welcome postdoctoral researchers and professors to apply for the academic year 2024-2025. This year, we will welcome applications from PhD students and candidates alike.
• Some fellows are practitioners who have made their careers outside of academia, such as technologists, entrepreneurs, lawyers, policymakers, activists, journalists, educators, and others from many industries and professions.
• Many fellows wear many hats and pursue various interests at the intersections of their capabilities. Fellows may be starting, restarting, moving forward with, questioning, or pivoting from their established professions.
• For the 2024–2025 academic year, we will emphasize and select fellows who have a track record of contributing to public and intellectual discussions in their field of study.
• Fellows are dedicated to using their fellowship in collaboration with others, led by kindness, a critical eye, and generosity of spirit.

Application

Applications will be accepted until Monday, January 22, 2024 

Applications will be submitted online through the Berkman Klein Application Tracker at: http://brk.mn/2425apply.

Instructions for creating an account and submitting an application through BKC’s Application Tracker may be found here.