The Radcliffe Exploratory Seminar Program provides funding to scholars, practitioners, and artists for collaboration in an interdisciplinary exploration of early-stage ideas. Our program encourages intellectual risk-taking as participants gather in an intensive seminar setting to explore new fields of research and inquiry. Hundreds of Harvard faculty members have benefited from this program, which challenges its participants to reimagine the boundaries of knowledge through multidisciplinary discussion.
Program details:
- Funding of up to $16,000 available to support one- to two-day, by-invitation-only seminars
- Hosted on the campus of the Radcliffe Institute
- Accommodates roughly 12–20 participants, subject to budgetary limitations
- Lead applicant must be either a Harvard ladder faculty member (tenure-track or tenured, including Harvard Medical School faculty, regardless of the financial guarantee surrounding salaries) or a former or current Radcliffe fellow; co-applicants may apply with lead applicants who meet eligibility requirements
- Applications are peer reviewed
We welcome proposals from a broad range of fields and perspectives that:
- explore the viability of early-stage research ideas in any discipline or multiple disciplines
- invite the perspectives of diverse participants and stakeholders to the discussion
- integrate senior and junior scholars from institutions in the greater Boston area, across the United States, or around the world
- demonstrate risk-taking and creativity
The following areas—while not exclusive—are of special interest:
- Radcliffe supports engaged scholarship. We welcome proposals that connect research to public policy, pressing social issues, and/or seek to actively engage audiences beyond academia.
- We welcome proposals relevant to the Institute’s focus areas, which include law, education, justice; youth leadership and civic engagement; and legacies of slavery.
- Reflecting Radcliffe’s unique history and institutional legacy, we welcome proposals that focus on women, gender, and society or draw on the Schlesinger Library’s collections.
Proposal Submission Deadlines
The application portal is available at https://harvard.smapply.org/
For seminars to be held between July 1, 2021 and June 30, 2022, proposals are due by 11:59 PM EST on Tuesday, October 13, 2020. For more information, including FAQs, please visit our website.
Virtual Informational Sessions
We invite you to attend one of our five information sessions in the arts, humanities, life sciences, physical sciences, or social sciences, where you can meet with a Radcliffe faculty director and ask questions in person about the program. If you are interested in attending one of our virtual informational sessions, please register here.
Questions?
For any questions regarding the Exploratory Seminar program, please contact Sean O’Donnell, associate director of Academic Ventures, at sean_odonnell@radcliffe.harvard.edu.