- Deadline
- Passed
The Open Society Fellowship is designed to support individuals pursuing innovative and unconventional approaches to fundamental open society challenges.
The Open Society Fellowship is no longer accepting applications. This page will be updated with any new information on upcoming grant cycles. Inquiries can be directed to osfellows@opensocietyfoundations.org.
Purpose and Priorities
The Open Society Fellowship was founded in 2008 to support individuals pursuing innovative and unconventional approaches to fundamental open society challenges. The fellowship funds work that will enrich public understanding of those challenges and stimulate far-reaching and probing conversations within the Open Society Foundations and in the world.
Open Society fellows produce work outputs of their own choosing, such as a book, journalistic or academic articles, art projects, a series of convenings, etc. In addition, fellowship cohorts may develop a joint work product of some sort. Fellowship staff will assist cohorts in brainstorming possible outputs if needed.
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Adriana Paz Ramirez
2021Adriana Paz Ramirez, a labor rights organizer and popular educator, will research policy victories won by domestic workers in Latin America to understand how grassroots action can compel employers and states to obey the law. -
Boaventura Monjane
2021Boaventura Monjane, a journalist and scholar-activist, will research growing poverty, inequality, and the rollback of civil and political rights in Mozambique at a time when new development pathways are urgently needed. -
Nizar Hassan
2021Nizar Hassan, an organizer, producer, and political commentator, will create an online video platform for informative and accessible Arabic-language content that examines links between (in)equality, justice, and democracy. -
Ruth Castel-Branco
2021Ruth Castel-Branco will explore the relationship between land, labor, and social welfare in Mozambique. She hopes to contribute to and popularize debates on the political possibilities and limitations of post-work utopias. -
Sara Abbas
2021Sara Abbas will write a book about how communities formed collaborative groupings during the revolution in Sudan to achieve long-term, socioeconomic change. -
Ben Rawlence
2013Ben Rawlence was conducting interviews with young Somali refugees in Kenya and recording their stories of survival and their aspirations for the future. -
Helen Epstein
2013Helen Epstein was writing a book on charity and the politics of epidemics. -
Jennifer Gordon
2013Jennifer Gordon was looking at the harms posed to workers worldwide by increasingly common labor recruitment and subcontracting practices. -
Madawi al-Rasheed
2013Madawi al-Rasheed wrote about young Saudi Islamists and their attitudes toward democratization and the Arab uprisings. -
Timothy A. Wise
2013Timothy A. Wise studied the hidden links between food security and commodities markets. -
Vanda Felbab-Brown
2013Vanda Felbab-Brown was researching seven illicit economies to determine how best to understand and manage them in ways that enhance human security and human rights. -
Alexander Cooley
2009As an Open Society Fellow, Alexander Cooley wrote about the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, as well as military basing policies in Central Asia. -
Basharat Peer
2009As an Open Society Fellow, Basharat Peer began writing a book about India’s Muslim community. -
Elizabeth MacKenzie Biedell
2009Elizabeth MacKenzie Biedell, a former intelligence analyst, explores how American presidents use classified information as they lead the nation to war. -
Eric Stover
2009Open Society Fellow Eric Stover examined how well war crimes tribunals serve victims of mass violence. -
Jonny Steinberg
2009Jonny Steinberg is the author of several books about everyday life in the wake of South Africa s transition to democracy. -
Mark Hertsgaard
2009Open Society Fellow Mark Hertsgaard is a journalist and author whose work focuses on new ways of understanding and combating climate change. -
Rebecca Hamilton
2009As an Open Society Fellow, Hamilton researched her book ‘Fighting for Darfur: Public Action and the Struggle to Stop Genocide,’ which investigates the impact of Darfur advocacy on foreign policy. -
Rebecca MacKinnon
2009As an Open Society Fellow, Rebecca MacKinnon conducted research for her first book, Consent of the Networked. -
Richard Cizik
2009As an Open Society Fellow, Cizik worked to bring evangelicals, policymakers, and activists together to address climate change, immigration, and criminal justice challenges. -
Richard Horsey
2009As an Open Society Fellow, Richard Horsey, a Burma analyst and labor rights advocate, wrote the first comprehensive account of International Labor Organization efforts to address forced labor abuses in Burma. -
Tony Camerino
2009Tony Camerino is a former U.S. Air Force interrogator who, as an Open Society Fellow, worked on a new field manual based on humane, effective interrogation techniques. -
Zack Exley
2009Open Society Fellow Zack Exley worked to identify, in Missouri, “leaderless” organizing models that would enable local leaders, activists, and social service providers to mobilize diverse constituencies that do not normally work together. -
Zackie Achmat
2009As an Open Society Fellow, Zackie Achmat researched and began writing a memoir about his remarkable life as an activist in South Africa. -
Evgeny Morozov
2008As an Open Society Fellow, Evgeny Morozov worked on his critically acclaimed book The Net Delusion, which punctures popular myths about the power of the internet to undermine authoritarian regimes.
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