IWM Digital Humanism Fellowship 2027 in Vienna for researchers

The Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna is taking applications for a three-month visiting fellowship on digital humanism, the study of how technology and society shape each other. It is open to any nationality and to any academic discipline.

What the fellowship pays

The rate depends on where you are in your career. Postdoctoral candidates who have defended their PhD by the date of the fellowship application deadline will receive a stipend of EUR 3,300 per month; candidates currently pursuing their doctoral degree will receive a stipend of EUR 2,750 per month. Read the small print here: the stipend covers everything, including flights to Vienna, accommodation, health insurance, local transport and research costs. The institute provides office space, internet and research facilities free of charge, but no separate travel or housing budget.

Who can apply

You must either be enrolled on a doctoral programme or have finished a doctorate no more than four years before the deadline. The subject matter is the real filter, not the discipline. The institute wants research on how digitalisation meets social, economic and geopolitical questions, and it explicitly refuses proposals that simply apply digital tools to humanities research. That distinction has sunk many applications.

The stay itself

Fellows spend three consecutive months at the institute, scheduled between the winter and the early summer, timed to overlap with the senior fellow in the same programme. Fellowships begin on the first day of a month and end on the last day of another, so the residency is a clean block rather than a flexible arrangement.

What you send

An online form only, never email. You need a short motivation letter, a project description, a project proposal, a curriculum vitae with publications, and two letters of recommendation that your referees submit themselves through a link they receive after you apply. All application materials must be in English, and every attachment has to be merged into one PDF with a Latin-character file name.

Deadline

The application deadline is 21 September 2026 at 23:59 central European summer time. Warn your two referees now, because their letters must arrive before that moment and the system only contacts them once you have submitted.