Exploratory Seminars
The Radcliffe Exploratory Seminar Program provides funding to scholars, practitioners, and artists for collaboration in an interdisciplinary exploration of early-stage ideas.
Our program encourages intellectual risk taking as participants gather in an intensive seminar setting to explore new fields of research and inquiry. Hundreds of Harvard faculty members and Radcliffe fellows have benefited from this program, which challenges its participants to reimagine the boundaries of knowledge through multidisciplinary discussion.
See list of 2022–2023 seminars
How to Apply
Applications are currently being accepted. To apply, please submit an application here. Applications are due Friday, October 7th at 11:59 PM.
- Supports one- to two-day, by-invitation-only seminars
- Hosted on the Harvard Radcliffe Institute campus, subject to health and safety guidelines
- Accommodates approximately 12–16 participants, subject to budgetary limitations
- Lead applicant must be either a Harvard ladder faculty member (tenured or tenure-track, including Harvard Medical School faculty, regardless of the financial guarantee surrounding salaries) from any school, or a former or current Radcliffe fellow; co-applicants may apply with lead applicants who meet eligibility requirements
- Applications are peer reviewed
These proposals:
- explore the viability of early-stage research ideas in any discipline or multiple disciplines
- invite the perspectives of diverse participants and stakeholders to the discussion
- integrate senior and junior scholars from institutions in the greater Boston area, across the United States, or around the world
- demonstrate risk taking and creativity
- Radcliffe supports engaged scholarship. We welcome proposals that connect research to public policy, pressing social issues, and/or seek to actively engage audiences beyond academia.
- We welcome proposals relevant to the Institute’s focus areas, which include law, education, justice; climate change, with a particular interest in climate justice; and legacies of slavery.
- Reflecting Radcliffe’s unique history and institutional legacy, proposals that focus on women, gender, and society or draw on the Schlesinger Library’s rich collections
Friday, October 7th 11:59 PM
- Tuesday, September 6th 3 PM–4 PM: the Radcliffe faculty director of the arts will be present
- Wednesday, September 7th 10 AM–11 AM: the Radcliffe faculty director of the social sciences will be present
- Tuesday, September 13th 11 AM–12 PM: the Radcliffe faculty director of the physical sciences will be present
- Wednesday, September 14th 12 PM–1 PM: the Radcliffe faculty director of the humanities will be present
- Wednesday, September 14th 2 PM–3 PM: the Radcliffe faculty director of the life sciences will be present
To register for one of the above virtual information session, please sign up here.
Please read our FAQs. If you still have questions, please contact Don Tontiplaphol, associate director of Academic Ventures and Engagement, at don_tontiplaphol@radcliffe.harvard.edu.