Ph.D. TRAINING

The Inequality Doctoral Fellows Program

A National Science Foundation graduate training fellowship for Harvard Ph.D. students

Economics | Government | Political Economy and Government | Public Policy | Sociology | Social Policy

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Overview

The Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality & Social Policy is a National Science Foundation initiative designed to enrich and extend the work of Harvard Ph.D. students by providing unique opportunities for cross-disciplinary education and research training. Established in 1998, it draws together the field’s leading scholars at Harvard and beyond to stimulate new approaches and multidisciplinary insights into questions of inequality and social policy.

While the tools of economics, political science, sociology, and public policy can each illuminate specific aspects of social policy problems, the Multidisciplinary Program explores how certain research puzzles might be more effectively addressed with a multidisciplinary perspective. It aims to produce scholars grounded in the recognized disciplines of their home departments, but who can also navigate the models, methods, and evidence of scholarship in adjacent fields.

An engaged community of scholars

The Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality & Social Policy offers unparalleled resources for Harvard Ph.D. students working in these research areas. Over 40 Harvard faculty members participate in the program, drawn from the FAS departments of Economics, Government, and Sociology; the John F. Kennedy School of Government; Graduate School of Education; and Harvard Law School.

Doctoral participants gain membership in an active intellectual community of faculty and Ph.D. students advancing new research in the study of labor markets, cities and neighborhood effects, race and ethnicity, and political inequalities—to highlight only a few of its substantive domains.

 

An integrated program of education and research

Doctoral participants pursue their research interests through an integrated set of training activities. The three-semester Proseminar in Inequality & Social Policy, taught by a multidisciplinary team of 3-4 faculty members, constitutes the educational core of the program. Ph.D. students gain exposure to advanced scholarship in other fields and see how other disciplines shed light on common research problems.

The program’s Malcolm Wiener Inequality & Social Policy Seminar Series brings to Harvard leading scholars from other institutions to present and discuss their latest research. In alternating years, the biennial Inequality Summer Institute gathers participants for an intensive two-day workshop in emerging research areas.

The formation of the European Network on Inequality (ENI) in 2004 adds a particularly novel element to the training program. The ENI is a consortium of 13 leading social policy research institutes in Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and the United Kingdom. All students selected as Doctoral Fellows receive full travel scholarships to participate in a research residency of approximately two months in one of the ENI partner institutions. Intended for European specialists and non-specialists alike, the ENI residencies enable participants to acquire a more global perspective through exploratory research or a collaborative project with a European mentor.

 

Generous stipend and research support

Harvard Ph.D. students apply to the Multidisciplinary Program at the end of their first or second (G-1 or G-2) year of doctoral study. Those selected as Doctoral Fellows receive generous stipend and research support, including a $30,000 dissertation stipend, $2,500 in individual research funds, and a European research placement. This year the program will name for the first time an additional Doctoral Fellow in Inequality and Criminal Justice, sponsored by the Harvard Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management. Other students selected for partial fellowships might typically receive an individual research fund of up to $5,000 and a European research placement.

Although National Science Foundation rules preclude providing support to international students from the program’s principal grant, the program has secured other sources of funding that make it possible to extend these opportunities, in some measure, to Harvard’s international students. More details may be found in the fellowship awards section of this site.

If the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality & Social Policy sounds right for you, we invite you to continue reading and to talk to other graduate students and faculty participants about their experiences in the program.

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