Hannah Arendt Fellowship

Annual fellowship programme for international scholars in the humanities, social sciences and cultural studies to spend up to six month at a research institution or university in Lower Saxony, Germany. 

The Hanna Arendt Fellowship of the Niedersächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen (Lower Saxony Academy of Sciences Göttingen) supports scholars in humanities, cultural and social sciences to spend up to six months at a university or non-educational research institution in Lower Saxony. The programme follows a decentralised, tandem-based residency model. Each fellow is paired with a local academic partner in a tandem and integrated into the host institution’s scholarly environment. Fellows pursue independent research projects free from teaching obligations, allowing them to focus on independent research in close collaboration with their host institutions, while receiving tailored support. Up to ten fellows are supported per year.

The topic of the 2026 call is ‘Defining Democracy – Describing Democracies – Comparing Democracies’. Possible research areas include:

• Conceptual histories and theories of democracy.
• Institutions, participation, and representation in historical and contemporary contexts.
• Democracy in antiquity, pre-modern societies, or non-Western traditions.
• Contemporary tensions such as authoritarianism, disinformation, or crises of representation.
• The role of media, language, performance, and symbolic practices in democratic life.
• Questions of equality, inclusion, and pluralism.

The programme is part of zukunft.niedersachsen initiative of the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture and the Volkswagen Foundation.