Office of the Provost

Call for Proposals: Carnegie Fellows Program

September 9, 2026

Limited competition open to scholars working on political polarization: How it manifests itself and how it can be mitigated in the US and abroad.

Guidelines and eligibility

Stony Brook may nominate one senior scholar and one junior scholar.

  • Junior scholars are scholars who earned a Ph.D. within the last 10 years.
  • Senior scholars are scholars who earned a Ph.D. more than 10 years ago.

Must be a U.S. citizen or U.S. permanent resident to be considered.

The fellowship is worth up to $200,000 to support up to two years of work that will result in a book or major study.

Criteria prioritize the originality and promise of the research, its promise to offer actionable solutions, and the scholar's plan for communicating findings to a broad audience.

SBU limited competition internal deadline: October 2

Carnegie application deadline: November 13

Submit your proposal

  • 1-page project description
  • Full CV

Submit your materials via email using the button below.

All proposals will be reviewed by the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Honorifics Committee.

Submit your proposal

The Carnegie Fellows Program explores the many ways in which political polarization in the United States and abroad manifests itself in society, and suggests ways that it may be mitigated.

The program helps Americans understand how and why our society has become so polarized and what can be done to strengthen social cohesion. Political polarization is characterized by, but not limited to, factors such as threats to free speech, the decline of civil discourse, disagreement over basic facts, and a lack of mutual understanding and collaboration.

For the next three years, beginning with the 2027 cohort of fellows, the Andrew Carnegie Foundation will broaden its focus beyond domestic perspectives to explicitly ask what the U.S. can learn from the experience of polarization in other countries.

Studies of polarization in other countries should offer lessons that can be applied to the United States, including:

  • What has been the relationship between populism and polarization in other countries?
  • How have some countries managed to avoid polarization?
  • What can we learn from countries that have stepped back from polarization, such as South Africa, Colombia, and Northern Ireland?
  • Under what conditions has polarization escalated into political violence?
  • Under what conditions has polarization taken root/accelerated/declined in other countries?

Explore the Carnegie Fellows Program