Most people in the community are interested in a range of issues and are working on them with varying degrees of formality, whether as a primary activity or a sidelight. Is the Berkman Klein Center also working on this issue and looking for fellows in this sphere of research? Many applicants have found that making the effort to engage members of the Berkman Klein community, whether formally or otherwise, is often helpful in this process-not so much for hints, but to get a sense of where and how they might fit in.
The straightforward if unsatisfying answer is to develop a strong application, which means reflection on your part as to why you are interested in the fellows program, what you will do given the opportunity, and how it fits with your work and the Berkman Klein Center's direction. There is no formula, and if we asked each of the reviewers, we might well get a different answer from them all. What can I do to increase the chances of success for my fellowship application? In addition to this, we look for perhaps less tangible, but equally important traits including intellectual rigor, vision, research skills, curiosity, openness, kindness, commitment to the public interest, and much more. Applicants are reviewed for achievements that are relevant to them (e.g., we don’t expect practitioners developing a new idea to have numerous publications, although we would expect that of an academic). The fellowship selection is a mixture of art and science, based on a number of factors considered in the calculus that are specific to the applicant and based on broader context-in particular, the Center's needs and composition of the fellowship class. On what basis are fellows selected through the open call?Įach year, we get far more excellent applicants than we have the capacity for, which is both a testament to the amazing work being conducted around the world and a challenging problem from a review and selection perspective.
A fantastic starting place for getting a feel for the fellowship program is 15 Lessons from the Berkman Fellows Program, a 2015 report written by David Weinberger.