Hannah Arendt Fellowships
The Hannah Arendt Fellowships are an international fellowship programme of the State of Lower Saxony supporting outstanding research in the humanities, cultural studies, and social sciences. Starting in 2026, the programme enables up to ten international scholars each year to undertake research stays of up to six months at universities, universities of applied sciences, and non-university research institutions across the region.
The programme is part of zukunft.niedersachsen, a joint funding initiative of the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture and the Volkswagen Foundation. A total of five million euros is available for the programme’s initial five-year funding period.
The development of the Hannah Arendt Fellowships builds on recommendations by the Scientific Commission of Lower Saxony (WKN) to strengthen the humanities, cultural studies, and social sciences. The programme is coordinated by the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Lower Saxony. As an independent institution with a state-wide remit and strong links across the research landscape, the Academy is responsible for the organisational implementation of the programme, supports the application and selection process, organises programme-wide events, and supports fellows and their host institutions throughout the fellowship period.
A defining feature of the Hannah Arendt Fellowships is their decentralised structure: fellows conduct research in close collaboration with a local academic host (“tandem partner”) at research institutions across Lower Saxony. In this way, the programme connects international research perspectives with the existing research profiles in the state and strengthens exchange between participating institutions.