Deadline: January 20, 2026
Applications are open for the Institute for the Cooperative Digital Economy (ICDE) Fellowship Program 2026-2027. The Institute for the Cooperative Digital Economy (ICDE) at The New School invites applications for its Fellowship Program, a global research program for scholars examining how cooperatives, unions, and solidarity-economy organizations are engaging with digital systems, including artificial intelligence and data-intensive infrastructures.
ICDE supports empirically grounded, comparative, and theoretically robust research on how digital infrastructures, including platforms, AI systems, data regimes, and algorithmic management, are evolving across diverse institutional and social contexts. The fellowship encourages open-ended, interdisciplinary inquiry that brings together perspectives from the social sciences, law, media studies, science and technology studies, organizational research, and related fields. ICDE welcomes work that develops and tests new concepts, frameworks, and comparative approaches to questions of governance, institutional design, and inequality in digital economies, while remaining attentive to real-world practices and constraints.
The fellowship emphasizes case-based and empirically engaged research, inviting fellows to explore concrete institutional settings through comparative analysis, conceptual experimentation, and inquiry into alternative organizational arrangements that may inform policy discussions and organizational practice.
Benefits
Fellows receive:
- Mentorship and feedback from ICDE faculty, senior researchers, and fellows
- Access to ICDE’s global network of scholars, cooperators, unions, and policymakers
- Opportunities to collaborate on research sprints, events, and publications
- Travel and accommodation support to attend the PCC Conference (conference-related costs only)
Fellows are responsible for securing their own visas.
Eligibility
- ICDE welcomes applications from:
- Ph.D. candidates and post-docs
- Junior and early-career faculty
- Applicants with equivalent research experience and a demonstrated record of scholarly or applied research may also be considered. They also welcome collaborative or paired applications in which two applicants propose aligned or joint research agendas.
Applicants should demonstrate:
- Engagement with, or clear plans to engage, specific cooperatives, unions, federations, or collective initiatives as part of their research process
- A clear research question grounded in real-world cases
- Capacity to contribute to a collaborative cohort and shared outputs
- Familiarity with cooperative, labor, or solidarity-economy contexts
Application
Applicants must submit:
- A CV (maximum 4 pages)
- A 1–2 page research proposal, including:
- Research question and motivation
- Empirical focus or case study
- Methods and timeline
- Relevance to ICDE’s research focus areas
- One writing sample demonstrating prior research
- Contact information for two academic or professional references
For more information, visit ICDE Fellowship.
