If you’re a full-time journalist focused on science, technology, health, or the environment and you’re looking for an opportunity to reenergize at one of the world’s top R&D institutions, it’s not too early to think about applying for a 9-month fellowship at Knight Science Journalism at MIT in the 2015-16 academic year.
Starting today, you can read about how the Fellowship program works, and how you can apply, at our newly updated application guidelines section. Be sure to check out our new 9-Month Fellowship description, our Eligibility page, our How to Apply section, and our FAQ page.
Here’s what isn’t changing about our program. It is still, and will always be, a unique opportunity for science and technology writers with at least three to five years of full-time journalism experience to
- step back from their daily work
- deepen their understanding of cutting-edge areas of science and engineering
- take courses at MIT and Harvard
- interact with top researchers featured as part of the KSJ’s seminars, workshops, and field trips
- learn from colleagues
- grow as storytellers and communicators
- immerse themselves in Cambridge’s unparalleled culture of ideas and innovation.
But here’s one thing that is changing: we’re giving out more cash. Starting in 2015-16, Fellows will be offered a stipend of $70,000, up from $65,000 in past years. The boost was needed to account the increased cost of living in the Cambridge/Boston area, and to bring the KSJ stipend into line with the amounts offered by similar mid-career journalism fellowship programs such as the John S. Knight Fellowships at Stanford, the Knight-Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan, and the Nieman Foundation Fellowships at Harvard.
And here’s another important change. On top of the traditional combination of individualized study and programs arranged by KSJ, we’re introducing an optional project element to the Fellowship.
We’re trying this change as an experiment, after consulting over a period of months with current and former Knight Fellows and other friends of KSJ. We asked Fellows and alumni what aspects of the Fellowship that they value most and what changes might make the experience even more lasting and useful. Almost universally, they agreed that a flexibly defined project would provide future Fellows with additional focus, as well as an opportunity to finish the year with a tangible product to share.
So, if you’re applying for a Knight Fellowship in 2015-16, we encourage you to propose a media project that you can complete while you’re here at MIT. A project can take almost any form—from a video to a magazine feature to a short e-book to a podcast episode to a data visualization—but it should be something that will require you to learn a new subject area and/or experiment with new technical or storytelling skills.
In support of KSJ’s overall mission to enhance the quality and impact of science and technology journalism, we’re looking for projects that explore, test, or demonstrate innovative ways of engaging with the public. We’ll supply Fellows with introductory digital-media training to help jumpstart their multimedia projects. And we’ll assist them in finding great material by connecting them with top researchers and other resources around Boston.
A university-based program like KSJ is a supportive and relatively risk-free place for Fellows to try something new, and we think projects will serve as pivotal opportunities for journalists who are seeking to improve their craft and find ways to thrive in a rapidly changing media ecosystem. That said, KSJ applicants aren’t required to propose a project, and Fellows aren’t required to complete one. There is plenty of value in the traditional 9-month fellowship model, which provides unrestricted intellectual freedom, time for reflection and deep study, opportunities to study with the best teachers at MIT and Harvard, and access to the thinkers at institutions around Boston who are pushing the boundaries of knowledge.
We hope you’ll check out the full application guidelines (start here) and consider KSJ as an option for your future in journalism. You can submit your online application starting on January 1, 2015, and the deadline for completed applications is February 28, 2015.
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