- Deadline
- Passed
The Open Society Fellowship is designed to support individuals pursuing innovative and unconventional approaches to fundamental open society challenges.
Since 2008, the Open Society Fellowship has supported heterodox thinkers and practitioners from around the world. The fellowship helps elevate new voices to take part in global conversations on the most pressing issues of our time—from human rights and social justice to climate change and inequality—and provide established public intellectuals new audiences for their work. This year’s fellows will be chosen from selected areas, each home to a dynamic community of thinkers engaged in high-level critical debate.
We look forward to announcing the latest group of fellows in spring 2025.
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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. -
Camilla Toulmin
2016Camilla Toulmin’s project documented shifting claims to land and natural resources in the Ségou region of central Mali over the last 35 years. -
Elisabeth Caesens
2016Elisabeth Caesens was examining hydroelectricity deals and revenue flows in the Democratic Republic of Congo to bring greater transparency and accountability to the country’s mining industry. -
Jennifer Daskal
2016Jennifer Daskal was investigating efforts by several nations—including the United States, the UK, and Brazil—to gain access to data stored outside their borders for use in criminal investigations. -
JingJing Zhang
2016JingJing Zhang used legal test cases to strengthen civil society’s ability to ensure Chinese overseas companies’ compliance with environmental laws and international human rights treaties. -
Katja Heinemann
2016Katja Heinemann, a photographer and longform journalist, was producing a multimedia documentary that investigates the interconnection of migration and social media use among young Afghan refugees in Berlin. -
Lican Liu
2016Lican Liu was writing a book that will apply an environmental justice approach to the pursuit of environmental protection in China. -
McKenzie Funk
2016McKenzie Funk, a journalist, wrote a book on how the push for open government in the United States has subjected ordinary citizens to undue scrutiny by federal agencies and private firms. -
Bálint Magyar
2015Bálint Magyar, a former Minister of Education for Hungary, was looking at several post-communist states, whose actions are warped by the concentration of power and wealth in the hands of corrupt political “families.” -
Euclides Gonçalves
2015Euclides Gonsalves looked at the creative ways citizens and government officials in Mozambique put bureaucratic documents to work to advance their own interests. -
James Murombedzi
2015James Murombedzi was looking at how land expropriations affect rural farmers and local governance in Africa. -
Liz Evans
2015Liz Evans was producing a guide to help urban communities change how addicts are seen and to improve methods of treatment. -
Lucia Nader
2015Lucia Nader was looking at how rights-based groups in Brazil, the United States, and Europe have responded to the demands of mass protest movements. -
Pablo Ortellado
2015Pablo Ortellado’s project was looking at why international protest movements often reject representative government while simultaneously demanding better public services from the state—and what can be done about it. -
Sasha Polakow-Suransky
2015Sasha Polakow-Suransky was writing a book on the long-term consequences of immigration—and the political backlash against it—in France, Denmark, Holland, South Africa, and Australia. -
Shekhar Singh
2015Shekhar Singh, an activist and academic, was exploring the mixed success of Right to Information laws in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh in achieving accountability from governments and other actors.
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