An article in Forbes magazine spotlights the Luce Foundation’s partnership with the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) on the Leading Edge Fellowship program. The initiative provides opportunities for recent humanities and social science PhDs to apply their knowledge beyond the academic sphere by partnering them with nonprofits on community-focused policy and research projects.

“ACLS created Leading Edge to be mutually beneficial both to nonprofits addressing urgent issues like racial inequality, economic insecurity, voter suppression, and access to quality healthcare and to early career PhDs facing the most difficult academic job market seen in a generation,” said Joy Connolly, President of ACLS.

Recent PhD recipients in the humanities and social sciences will be able to pursue new posts at a variety of nonprofit organizations and governmental agencies across the United States. That’s always good news for those struggling in a perennially tight job market, but it’s particularly welcome this year as academic positions in the humanities continue to dry up.

The new opportunities come from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS)’s continuation of its Leading Edge Fellowship program. This marks the third round of these fellowship awards.

The program launched in July 2020 with support from the Henry Luce Foundation, connecting new PhDs first in art history and visual culture and then in ethics, theology and religion with nonprofits focused on addressing social challenges created or exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation joined as a supporting partner in Fall 2020, allowing ACLS to open the competition to new PhDs across all fields in the humanities and related social sciences and to place them in a broader variety of social justice-oriented projects.

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