Apply to Lead a Seminar
All tenured and tenure-track faculty at Harvard and current and former Radcliffe Institute fellows can apply online to lead an exploratory seminar.
Our Exploratory Seminars help scholars and researchers take intellectual risks while working in a congenial environment with colleagues from their own or other fields. Together, they conceive new questions, test hypotheses, examine data, and plan next steps.
Though only one to three days in duration, Exploratory Seminars are rich with possibility and have led to new projects, books, collaborations, and research. Participants come from all academic fields, the arts, and the professions.
Seminars can take place during the academic year or during the summer months.
How to Create a Seminar Proposal
We seek to provide maximum freedom for intellectual exploration and innovative thinking. Proposals for Exploratory Seminars
- convey an early vision of proposed research and are not expected to be entirely polished;
- may reflect any subject matter or disciplinary concentration and may involve single disciplines or multidisciplinary groups;
- are encouraged to cross departmental, divisional, or school boundaries;
- are given special favor when providing opportunities for junior faculty to participate alongside senior faculty; and
- involve 10 to 18 scholars, with at least three or four Harvard faculty and the remaining participants from other universities in the United States and around the world.
Radcliffe does not fund larger, more formal meetings like conferences under this program, and Exploratory Seminars are not public events.
Click here for more detailed instructions about creating a seminar proposal online.
Additional Information
If a proposal is accepted, we provide meeting space, logistical and administrative support prior to and throughout the seminar. The Institute will cover costs of up to $18,000 for food, travel, and lodging for seminar participants.
A seminar leader is expected to submit a brief report on the outcomes of the seminar within a month of the seminar’s completion.
Deadlines
The deadline to submit proposals for 2013–2014 has passed. Applications for seminars to be held in academic year 2014–2015 will be accepted in fall 2013. If you have any questions, contact Paul Beran at paul_beran@radcliffe.harvard.edu.
For substantive proposal questions related to your field or to cross-disciplinary proposals, please contact our Academic Ventures faculty associates:
- Professor Joanna Aizenberg, jaiz@seas.harvard.edu
Social Science
- Professor Robert Sampson, rsampson@wjh.harvard.edu
Arts and Humanities
- Professor Leah Price, lprice@fas.harvard.edu
- Professor Ann Blair, amblair@fas.harvard.edu
