Wilson Center 2021 Fellowship for International Researchers (US)

The Wilson Center invites scholars, practitioners, journalists and public intellectuals to take part in its flagship International Fellowship Program and to take advantage of the opportunity to engage actively in the Center’s national mission. 

Through an international competition, the Center offers 9-month residential fellowships. The Wilson Center invites scholars, practitioners, journalists and public intellectuals to take part in its flagship international Fellowship Program. Fellows conduct research and write in their areas of interest, while interacting with policymakers in Washington and Wilson Center staff and other scholars in residence.  The Center accepts policy-relevant, non-advocacy fellowship proposals that address key challenges confronting the United States and the world.

• Table of Content
• About Wilson Center
• Wilson Center Fellowship
• Aim and Benefits of Wilson Center Fellowship
• Requirements for Wilson Center Fellowship Qualification
• Documents Required for Application
• Application Deadline
• How to Apply

About Wilson Center

The Wilson Center, chartered by Congress in 1968 as the official memorial to President Woodrow Wilson, is the nation’s key non-partisan policy forum for tackling global issues through independent research and open dialogue to inform actionable ideas for the policy community. The Wilson Center brings fresh thinking and deep expertise to the most pressing policy challenges we face today. We convene scholars to create a global dialogue of ideas that Congress, the administration, and the international policy community can act on. In 2019, the Wilson Center was named the #1 regional studie... continue reading

Wilson Center Fellowship

Aim and Benefits of Wilson Center Fellowship

• Each fellow is assigned a furnished office around the clock.
• The Center is located in the heart of Washington, D.C., and includes conference rooms, a reference library, and a dining room.
• The Wilson Center Library provides loan privileges with the Library of Congress and access to digital resources, its book and journal collections, and to university and special libraries in the area, and other research facilities.
• Windows-based personal computers are provided, and each fellow is offered a part-time research assistant.
• Although fellows are responsible for locating their own housing in the Washington, D.C. area, the Center provides written materials to help facilitate the search process.
• The Center tries to ensure that the fellowship award, when combined with the recipient’s other sources of income (e.g. other grants and sabbatical allowances), approximates an individual’s current level of income.
• Awards will also include round trip travel for fellows.
• If spouses and/or dependent children will reside with the fellow for the entire fellowship period, money for their travel will also be included.
• In addition to stipends and travel allowances, the Center provides 75 percent of health insurance premiums for fellows who elect Center coverage and for their accompanying family members.

Requirements for Wilson Center Fellowship Qualification

• Citizens or permanent residents from any country (applicants from countries outside the United States must hold a valid passport and be able to obtain a J-1 visa even if they are currently in the United States)
• Men and women with outstanding capabilities and experience from a wide variety of backgrounds (including academia, business, government, journalism, and other professions)

• Academic candidates holding a Ph.D. (Ph.D. must be received by the application deadline of October 1)
• Academic candidates demonstrating scholarly achievement by publications beyond their doctoral dissertations
• Practitioners or policymakers with an equivalent level of professional achievement
• English proficiency as the Center is designed to encourage the exchange of ideas among its fellows

Selection Criteria: The basic criteria for selection are:

• significance of the proposed research, including the importance and originality of the project;
• the relevance of the project to contemporary policy issues;
• the relevance of the project to the programmatic work of the Center;
• quality of the proposal in definition, organization, clarity, and scope;
• capabilities and achievements of the applicant and the likelihood that the applicant will accomplish the proposed project;
• potential of a candidate to actively contribute to the life, priorities and mission of the Center by making expert research accessible to a broader audience.

The Center welcomes in particular those projects that transcend narrow specialties and methodological issues of interest only within a specific academic discipline. Projects should involve fresh research-—in terms of both the overall field and the author’s previous work. It is essential that projects have relevance to public policy, and fellows should want, and be prepared, to interact with policymakers in Washington and with Wilson Center staff and other scholars who are working on similar issues.  

Documents Required for Application

A complete application must include the following:

1. the Fellowship Application Form;
2. a current CV (not to exceed three pages); The Center will only accept the first three pages; please list your publications separately.
3. a list of your publications that includes exact titles, names of publishers, dates of publication and status of forthcoming publications (not to exceed three pages);
4. a Project Proposal (not to exceed five single-spaced typed pages, using 12-point type); The Center reserves the right to omit from review applications that are longer than the requested page length;
5. a bibliography for the project that includes primary sources and relevant secondary sources (not to exceed three pages);
6. the Financial Information Form;
7. Two letters of reference.

Application Deadline

How to Apply

For more details, visit Wilson Center website.