Currently 8 active cross-disciplinary and social impact grants, fellowships and residencies open to applicants in the US. Hand-curated and updated weekly. Almost every entry is funded; a few notable unpaid open calls and festival submissions are included as clearly flagged exceptions. Browse the list below, or use the interactive desk for filtering and shortlisting.
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The Harvard Radcliffe Institute Fellowship offers scientists, writers, scholars, public intellectuals, and artists a year to pursue ambitious projects in a vibrant interdisciplinary setting amid the resources of Harvard University. The Institute welcomes innovative work that confronts pressing social, scientific, and policy issues and seeks to engage audiences beyond academia. Reflecting Radcliffe's history, it welcomes (but does not limit eligibility to) proposals focused on women, gender, and society, or that draw on the Schlesinger Library's collections. It also invites proposals relevant to the Institute's 2024-2029 focus area, academic freedom and connecting across difference (intellectual virtues, free and open inquiry, diversity of thought, political polarization, peace and conflict, inequality, religious pluralism, and related higher-education policy issues), including work that constructively challenges disciplinary orthodoxies or advances transformative perspectives. SUPPORT: USD 78,000 stipend plus USD 5,000 for project expenses, with relocation, housing, and childcare funds available; fellows must reside in the Cambridge/Boston area from September through May. ELIGIBILITY: open to individuals across career stages; tenure is not required and applicants need not be academics. This is NOT a postdoctoral fellowship; those currently enrolled in a degree program are ineligible, as are former Harvard Radcliffe fellows (1999-present). Applicants must meet discipline-specific criteria. APPLY: register on the online portal and select an area (Humanities and Social Sciences; Creative Arts; Nonfiction and Journalism; or Science, Engineering, and Mathematics). Materials: application form, CV, 1,400-word project proposal (with bibliography when appropriate), a writing or work sample, and three references. DEADLINES: humanities, social sciences, creative arts, and nonfiction and journalism by 10 September 2026, 5pm ET; science, engineering, and mathematics by 1 October 2026, 5pm ET.
The inaugural Mycelia Fellowship by Social Resonance Lab, a collaborative research studio exploring how ethical storytelling fosters human connection, selects two practitioners advancing innovative projects at the intersection of ethical storytelling, arts, civic engagement, AI, or the digital landscape. TWO TRACKS: Arts as a Civic Tool (artistic practice for public engagement and social issues) and AI and the Digital Landscape (technology's influence on narratives and collective memory). Fellows receive a USD 2,000 stipend, direct advising and consultancy from the SRL team, a published piece on the SRL Substack, a guest spot on an upcoming ethical storytelling podcast, and co-lead a workshop presenting their work to practitioners and the public. The fellowship strengthens, documents, refines or scales EXISTING projects; do not pitch a completely new idea, and connect your work clearly to ethical storytelling and one of the two tracks. ELIGIBILITY: US residents only (including territories, must be able to file a W-9 and use a US bank account) with an existing project underway, intersectional practice awareness, and strong writing and research skills. Remote, 8 weeks, November to December 2026. No application fee. Deadline: 13 September 2026, 11:59 PM.
The Guggenheim Fellowship is awarded to mid-career individuals who have already demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts, giving them six to twelve months of funded time to work with as much creative freedom as possible. Around 175 to 200 fellows are chosen each year from a field of several thousand applicants (a success rate of roughly five percent), across more than 50 fields spanning the creative arts, the humanities, the natural sciences and the social sciences, including architecture, film, music, photography, fine arts, computer science and interdisciplinary work. ELIGIBILITY: citizens and permanent residents of the United States and Canada; applicants must be mid-career with a significant record of published or exhibited work, and current students and previous Guggenheim Fellows are not eligible. APPLICATION: through the Foundation's own portal, which opens in late summer 2026, so check the site if it is not yet live. The application deadline is 15 September 2026 with no late submissions accepted; work samples are due 29 September 2026 and reference letters 13 October 2026. Results are announced in late April 2027. No fee.
The American Academy in Berlin is an independent, nonprofit institute for advanced study in the arts, humanities, social sciences, law, journalism and public policy, whose primary mission is to strengthen the cultural and intellectual ties between the United States and Germany. Each year, after a rigorous selection process, the Academy awards roughly two dozen semester-long Berlin Prize fellowships to individuals who demonstrate excellence in their fields. DISCIPLINES: applications are welcome across the humanities, social sciences, law, journalism and various areas of public policy. The Academy generally encourages projects addressing pressing issues of the day, specifically naming democracy, security, technology and society (especially AI), energy including climate, and global order. Dedicated fellowships also support projects in Jewish studies, German studies, and public health and biotechnology. Project proposals need not focus on Germany, but candidates should explain how a residency in Berlin would enhance their work. NOT ACCEPTED: proposals in mathematics or the natural sciences. NOTE FOR ARTISTS: visual artists and composers are invited through separate, nomination-based competitions, so there is no open application route for them here. ELIGIBILITY: fellowships are restricted to citizens and permanent residents of the United States. Both emerging and established figures are eligible. PhD holders qualify as emerging scholars with a strong record of peer-reviewed work beyond the dissertation; candidates in non-academic fields such as journalism, filmmaking and policy need a significant record of publication or production; fiction and nonfiction writers must have published at least one book with a reputable press. WHAT FELLOWS DO: fellows present their work to audiences in and around Berlin through lectures, readings, public discussions, performances and film screenings, and should be willing to engage with relevant German institutions, organizations and the media; these activities are integral to the Academy's mission of fostering transatlantic dialogue. APPLICATION MATERIALS: a project proposal of 1,500 to 1,750 words plus a one-page bibliography; a curriculum vitae of up to 10 pages; two writing samples totalling no more than 60 pages; and three letters of recommendation, which are due 2 October 2026. DEADLINE: Friday 25 September 2026 at 12:00 noon Eastern Time (18:00 Central European Time). TIMELINE: all candidates are notified of the competition outcome by email in late March 2027; the 2027-28 Berlin Prize recipients are announced in May 2027.
Humanity AI, an initiative of ten leading philanthropies, opens a USD 10 million call for community-led initiatives that shape how AI affects people's lives. ISSUE AREAS: Education (student and educator-centered work shaping AI's educational impact); Labor and Economy (worker-led efforts to ensure AI enhances rather than replaces employment); and Humanities, Arts, and Culture (artist and creator-focused work protecting cultural contributions). ELIGIBLE APPROACHES: shaping the rules for AI governance and deployment; building AI controlled by communities rather than corporations; and challenging misaligned AI deployments. Community-led means the affected community defines the goals and shapes the approach. Priority goes to open-weight and open-source AI models over proprietary ones. OUT OF SCOPE: AI literacy training, AI adoption promotion, and research-only work. GRANTS: three tiers from USD 75,000 to 1,000,000, up to three years. ELIGIBILITY: US-based 501(c)(3) organizations as lead applicants; individuals via fiscal sponsors or collaborations; Tribal governments treated as States under IRC Section 7871; for-profit entities only as collaborators, not leads; all proposals must serve US-based communities. TIMELINE: launched 10 September 2026; applicant webinar 14 September 2026; initial applications due 21 October 2026 at 4:59pm PT; finalists notified December 2026; awards announced early spring 2027. Apply via Submittable; an organizational readiness tool on the site helps assess eligibility first.
Open Interval is a Simons Foundation program that supports trios consisting of an artist, a scientist, and a representative from a 501(c)(3) arts organization to collaborate around a shared scientific theme. The current cycle centers on the theme of turbulence, a phenomenon at the edge of chaos and beauty. Awarded trios receive USD 30,000 to support a sustained period of thought partnership and exploration rather than the production of finished works or exhibitions. The program runs from April to December 2027 with a touchstone meeting in May 2027 and possible cohort convenings. Trio members must be regionally co-located anywhere in the United States so they can collaborate in person. The scientist should hold a Ph.D. and be conducting basic research, with priority given to fields such as astrophysics, neuroscience, quantum physics, biology, or mathematics. The application portal opens September 9, 2026, and all three trio members must submit for the application to be complete.
The MIT Museum seeks proposals for compelling digital content exploring humanity's relationship with the BRAIN, the museum's thematic focus from April to September 2027 bringing together art, science, technology and design on cognition, neurotechnology, brain-computer interfaces, mental health and the boundaries of ability. Selected proposals run as ambient content on the two-story digital screen (3840x3024, 80:63 aspect ratio, 20'3" x 16'2") in the museum's central Exchange amphitheater. The museum wants immersive, non-linear, experimental, non-didactic work, such as artful visualizations of data or scientific phenomena; interactivity (touchscreens, QR codes) is out of scope and content-critical audio is discouraged. Content must run on the museum's existing hardware (Windows PC with RTX 3090, NEC LED wall with Analog Way 4K system). WHO CAN APPLY: artists, scientists, engineers, designers and other creative practitioners, from MIT or the broader community. SUPPORT: flat honorarium of USD 2,500-5,000 per selected proposal; no additional development funding. Applications reviewed from 2 November, accepted list finalized January 2027. Deadline: 1 November 2026.
Kaatsbaan Cultural Park offers subsidized residencies for artists of all genres to create, live, and collaborate on its 153-acre campus in the Hudson Valley near Tivoli, New York. Residencies are individually designed between the artist, Kaatsbaan, and partners to fit the needs of the artist or company, welcoming disciplines from dance, theater, music, and visual arts to writing, composition, design, and film. The program is generously subsidized and includes individual hotel-style rooms, healthy locally sourced meals, and access to professional studios with sprung floors and pianos, a 160-seat black box theater, and exhibition space. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis through an inquiry form, with early inquiries encouraged to secure preferred dates. Artists at any career stage worldwide may apply, individually or as collaborative teams. There is no application fee and no artist stipend.