Deadline: January 31, 2024
The Social Science Research Council is now looking for applicants for the third cohort of its Just Tech Fellowship. This is a two-year, full-time, remote fellowship supporting a diverse community of researchers and practitioners investigating the intersection of technology and social justice. This fellowship supports and mobilizes diverse and cross-sector cohorts of practitioners to imagine and create more just, equitable, and representative technological futures. Fellows have committed to identifying and challenging injustices emerging from new technologies and pursuing solutions that advance social, political, and economic rights.
The Just Tech Fellowship recognizes that our communities are home to brilliant artists, activists, technologists, and thinkers who have laid fertile soil for equitable change. They need an ecosystem of care to continue their work. As the world reckons with a global legacy of systemic discrimination, we can reimagine the limits and potential of new technology and ensure that expertise and experiential knowledge inform efforts to produce structural change. The Just Tech Fellowship and its fellows seek to build technological futures that celebrate and manifest justice, equity, agency, knowledge, and joy.
Benefits
Fellows receive two-year awards of $100,000 annually, robust supplementary funding to subsidize additional expenses, and separate seed funding to collaborate with other Just Tech Fellows. The fellowship believes that this model of Whole Person support provides the space and time necessary for deep reflection, an engaged community, and opportunities for ambitious cocreation.
Eligibility
- Positionality: This fellowship seeks to center the perspectives of individuals from social, racial, or ethnic groups that have been historically marginalized, oppressed, or excluded by emerging technologies, such as Black/African Americans, Latinx/Hispanics, Indigenous peoples, or Alaska Native groups, AAPI individuals, religious minorities, gender nonconforming individuals, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and people with disabilities. Residency: Citizens of any country may apply, but fellows will be expected to reside in the United States during their fellowship term. The SSRC will not sponsor visas and may not be indicated as an affiliate or sponsor of visa applications. Please refer to the US State Department to learn more about visa requirements.
- Education: There are no formal education requirements. Applicants may hold academic credentials, such as a degree in the arts, fine arts, or sciences, OR a demonstrated track record of success in their respective fields.
- Commitment: Full-time must be dedicated to the fellowship (36 hours/week). Candidates with teaching or other permanent positions must be able to take leave or obtain course buyouts for at least one year during their time as a fellow.
- Experience: Candidates are encouraged to have a track record and experience working on the intersection of digital and novel technologies, power, and social justice. We also invite early career applicants and those who successfully demonstrate a strong potential to contribute to a desired field of research and practice.
Selection Criteria
Fellows will be selected based on a rigorous review process. We will evaluate applications according to the following criteria:
- Applicants must champion vital research into tech’s impact and its potential for both harm and benefit; must center historically minoritized or racialized perspectives; must show commitment to building and sustaining a diverse community of researchers and practitioners; and must demonstrate a commitment to vision and build toward technological futures that manifest justice, agency, knowledge, joy, care, and interdependence.
- The project must address the relationship between digital and novel technologies, power, and social justice. While you may apply to the fellowship under this particular project, we also recognize that your modality of achieving the end goal may change, and we accept whatever emerges. Understand that the timeline of your project does not need to fit within two years, but make sure to articulate what aspects of the project are achievable within this timeline.
- Applicants should communicate how they would use their time as a fellow to systematically uncover evidence, build understanding, and shape public interest solutions to advance the goals of Just Tech.
Application
To complete the online application, you must provide the following information and documentation:
- Résumé/CV: Up to two pages.
- Personal Statement: Applicants should submit a written or recorded (video) personal statement of up to 500 words (written) OR four (4) minutes (video).
- Work Proposal: Applicants should submit a proposal for a project focused on the intersection of technology and social justice. The work proposal can be submitted as a written document (max 1,500 words) or project deck. Applicants with artistic or design backgrounds are encouraged to submit a creative slide deck representing their proposed project.
For more information, visit Just Tech Fellowship.
