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Andrew Carnegie Fellows Program

In June 2023, Carnegie Corporation of New York announced a second phase of the Andrew Carnegie Fellows Program and a new focus on political polarization in the United States. For at least the next three years, the program will ask scholars to help Americans understand how and why our society has become so polarized and what we can do to strengthen the forces of cohesion in American society. The next class of fellows will be announced in spring 2024. 

The fellows program was established in 2015 to provide philanthropic support to extraordinary scholars and writers for high-caliber research in the humanities and social sciences. During its first eight years, nearly 250 scholars received fellowships of $200,000 to explore a range of important and enduring issues.

After a one-year pause in 2022, the program has resumed with the focus on political polarization. The issue is characterized by threats to free speech, the decline of civil discourse, disagreement over basic facts, and a lack of mutual understanding and collaboration. In combination, these factors fracture our society, cause Americans to abandon the middle ground, and ultimately undermine our democracy.  

Fellowships of $200,000 are awarded annually to 30 exceptional scholars, authors, journalists, and public intellectuals. The criteria prioritize the originality and promise of the research, its potential impact on the field, and the scholar’s plans for communicating the findings to a broad audience. The funding is for a period of one or two years with the anticipated result of a book or major study. The fellows are selected by a distinguished panel of jurors, chaired by John J. DeGioia, president of Georgetown University, and comprised of academic and intellectual leaders from some of the nation’s most prominent educational institutions, foundations, and scholarly societies.  

The fellows program is a continuation of the mission of Carnegie Corporation of New York, as founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1911, to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding. Through the study of political polarization in the United States, the Corporation seeks to raise awareness in the philanthropic sector, guide public policy, and help inform the foundation’s grantmaking in democracy, education, and international peace and security. 

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