Press Releases

Monday, June 30, 2008

Redesigned Abe Fellowship Program Offers New Opportunities for International Research and Collaboration

The Abe Fellowship Program has been redesigned and expanded in response to changes in the international landscape that have affected U.S.-Japan relations and, in turn, the responsibilities and agendas shared by these two nations. Founded in 1991 with the goal of promoting intellectual collaboration between Japan and the United States, the program will now support important and innovative work in several new areas of concern to both nations, as well as research by journalists.

As before, the program aims to foster international multidisciplinary research on topics of pressing global concern. But the redesign introduces a new journalism fellowship, a new collaborative policy forum, and new set of programmatic themes:

  • Traditional and Non-Traditional Approaches to Security and Diplomacy
  • Global and Regional Economic Issues
  • Role of Civil Society

The expanded program now supports two fellowship competitions: the original Abe Fellowship established in 1991 and a new Abe Fellowship for Journalists (AFJ).

Abe Fellowship

The Abe Fellowship provides scholars and non-academic research professionals in the social sciences and related disciplines with support for research projects lasting 3 to 12 months on one or a combination of the three program themes. Research must be policy-relevant, contemporary, and comparative or transnational. The deadline to apply for the Abe Fellowship is September 1st annually.

Abe Fellowship for Journalists (AFJ)

AFJ is designed to encourage in depth coverage of topics of pressing concern to the United States and Japan through individual short-term policy-related projects. The deadline to apply for AFJ is September 15th annually.

Abe Fellows selected from both competitions must spend a significant portion of their time in Japan or the United States depending on their home base.

Policy Forum

In addition to the two fellowship competitions, a new CGP-SSRC Policy Forum will bring together academics, practitioners, policy actors and journalists to work toward the goal of long-term, policy-oriented solutions to issues of global public consequence. Each forum will focus on a single broad theme over a two-year period which will allow for sustained interaction among forum participants as well as a variety of outputs targeted to important moments in the real-world policy debate.

The Abe Fellowship is funded by the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership (CGP) and administered by the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) in collaboration with the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). The program is one of the central components of CGP and is named after the late Shintaro Abe, former Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs.

For more details on the Abe Fellowship Program, visit http://fellowships.ssrc.org/abe/ or contact program staff at abe@ssrc.org.