Apply now as program chair, individual fellow, or research group for the academic year 2025–26
Update: Due to institutional changes, THE NEW INSTITUTE has withdrawn its 2025/2026 open call and research theme Collapse as Transformation. Applications will no longer be processed. We will contact those who have already applied—and we sincerely apologize to those who have invested time and effort in writing an application. To learn more about the reason behind our decision, please refer to the press release on our website.
We invite applications for Program Chairs, Individual Fellows, and Research Groups who work on responses to “collapse” in the academic year 2025–26.
Global systems are in a process of collapsing—ecologically, economically, politically, culturally, and spiritually. We are living in the twilight of the mastery and possession of nature paradigm. The responses offered by intellectual and political establishments are exhausted. New ways of living together are urgently needed. Practices rooted in an ethical worldview that recognizes dependency, fragility, finitude, and mortality may offer a way forward. The question is how this ethical self-understanding might form the basis of ways of living in light of collapse.
We invite applications for Program Chairs, Individual Fellows, and Research Groups who work on responses to “collapse” within the context of our three research areas: Socio-Economic Transformation, The Future of Democracy, and The Human Condition in the 21st Century. We are interested in approaches coming from the humanities and social sciences, especially philosophy, religion, psychoanalysis, critical legal theory and economics. We are also interested in practitioners coming from politics, journalism, business, and the arts.
About THE NEW INSTITUTE
We gather thinkers across disciplines to engage the challenges of our time. Our mission is to nourish transformation through interdisciplinary and trans-sectoral collaboration. Our residential fellowship program hosts up to 30 fellows in Hamburg, Germany. In addition, we host events and work- shops and collaborate with other institutions. The Institute is committed to incubating new ideas, expanding the influence of work already done, and making a tangible difference through its work.
Learn more about the call and THE NEW INSTITUTE on our website.
