Open Fellowship Program

The Open Fellowship Program, which ran from 2023 to summer 2025, offered outstanding scientists with overarching projects the opportunity to work on new ideas at the Weizenbaum Institute. The program has ended and no further applications are possible.

With this program, the Weizenbaum Institute specifically supported researchers from all over the world with interdisciplinary projects and enabled them to spend a research stay at the institute in Berlin with an Open Fellowship. The aim was to introduce new perspectives into the research work of the WI and to further strengthen the research networking.

A total of five calls for applications were carried out as part of the Open Fellowship Program. These took place every six months. Experts from all disciplines and career levels were able to apply with a project related to the Weizenbaum Institute's research profile. The focus was on project ideas that combined basic research and interdisciplinarity with social relevance and a reference to the Weizenbaum Institute's guiding values (strengthening individual and collective self-determination and sustainability in dealing with and using digital technology). In addition, they were open up new perspectives on the digitally networked society or contribute innovative proposals for solutions for research and practice to the discussion. Some of the calls also had a thematic focus.

A total of 28 people from five continents and 13 different countries came to the Weizenbaum Institute as Open Fellows. The proportion of women was 32 percent. The Open Fellows contributed a broad interdisciplinary spectrum of research. Among others, communication and media sciences, law, data sciences, sociology and philosophy were represented.

The duration of the fellowships was a maximum of 3 months. During their time at the WI, the fellows were not directly assigned to any of the research groups. A “buddy” system ensured rapid integration into academic life at the WI.

The Open Fellows and their profiles are presented below.

Contact

If you have any questions, please contact fellowships[at]weizenbaum-institut.de.

Voices of former Open Fellows

“I have greatly benefited from my Open Fellowship at the Weizenbaum Institute which has provided me the opportunity to pursue my independent research project on China‘s Digital Silk Road. The interdisciplinary nature of the Institute creates a unique atmosphere for stimulating, intellectual conversations and has inspired me to consider my own research from exciting, new perspectives.”

Dana Rice, Australian National University

“The Open Fellowship at Weizenbaum Institute gave me an excellent opportunity to develop my project on digital education markets in India. I am happy I could present some findings of my study on post-pandemic education markets, where I received insightful comments and suggestions. I also had the opportunity to discuss my work with other Fellows and members of different cohorts. I look forward to many more collaborative research and workshops at Weizenbaum.”

Dr. Yamini Agarwal, Research Fellow at Max Weber Forum for South Asian Studies, New Delhi (MWF)

“My time at the Weizenbaum Institute as an Open Fellow allowed me to strengthen my book proposal and connections with amazing researchers at the Institute. I really enjoyed the interdisciplinary, innovative and critical perspectives of internet research together with very generous colleagues.”

Dr. Rafael Grohmann, University of Toronto

“As a fellow at the Weizenbaum Institute, I‘m focusing on how newsrooms in Europe are responding to the challenges and opportunities posed by generative visual AI. The Institute‘s Open Research Program is an excellent opportunity for me to work alongside and learn from a team of interdisciplinary researchers who lead the way in studying digital transformation.”

Dr. T.J. Thomson, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT)