Max Kade Berlin Fellowships Grant

Max Kade Berlin Fellowships Grant

Status: ACTIVE
Funder: Freie Universität Berlin
Amount: US $28,000
Last Updated: September 22, 2025

Summary

The Max Kade Berlin Fellowships provide up to one year of dissertation or postdoctoral research support at Freie Universität Berlin, open to U.S. scholars in social sciences and humanities. Funded by the Max Kade Foundation since 2017, these fellowships enhance academic exchange and foster cross-cultural understanding. Each fellowship offers a stipend of $25,000 to cover living and travel expenses for research stays of 10 to 12 months, significantly benefiting postdoctoral research opportunities in German and European studies.

Overview

About The Berlin Program offers up to one year of dissertation or postdoctoral research support at the Freie Universität Berlin. It is open to scholars in all social science and humanities disciplines, including historians working on German and European history since the mid-18th century. We offer five different fellowships: Berlin Program Dissertation Fellowship, Berlin Program Postdoc Fellowship, Max Kade Berlin Postdoc Fellowship, Kerstin Leitner Berlin Dissertation Fellowship and Kerstin Leitner Berlin Postdoc Fellowship. Max Kade Berlin Fellowships The Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies at Freie Universität Berlin is proud to offer two postdoctoral fellowships each academic year funded by the Max Kade Foundation since 2017. We are indebted to the German Studies Association (GSA), our North American cooperation partner and co-sponsor for their initiative to secure the foundation’s support in order to strengthen postdoctoral research opportunities in the Berlin Program. The Max Kade Foundation, an endowed private foundation, has a strong commitment to foster a cross-cultural understanding between German-speaking countries and the United States. Founded in 1944, by Max Kade and his wife Annette, the foundation’s initial goal was to help Germany recover from the effects of World War II—in Max Kade’s words “to sow the seeds of friendship where there had been enmity.” In their mission to enable international understanding the Foundation supports multi-level academic exchange, i.e. undergraduate, graduate, postdoctoral and faculty exchange but also supports the renovation and construction of learning centers, student residences and cafeterias. Here in Berlin, the Foundation has been instrumental in supporting the renovation of the university’s main lecture hall, the Henry-Ford-Bau, from 2005 to 2007. The support by the Max Kade Foundation has allowed the program to increase the number of our postdoc fellows from two to four in a group with ten fellows working on dissertation projects. This has led to a more intense transfer of knowledge in our research colloquium, which serves as a central platform for all fellows to present, discuss, and support each other’s work. In this vital forum, the postdocs have been instrumental in the progress made by all fellows during their research stay. As more advanced scholars in our group, they share their knowledge and experience regarding questions of research design, research planning, archival work, interviews, and academic writing. Postdocs keep guiding our group on how to tackle difficult challenges e.g. narrowing the research focus, structuring findings, and avoiding common pitfalls. In short, our Max Kade fellows have been pillars in our program and we hope to continue our highly productive relationship with the Max Kade Foundation for many years to come. The fellowship offers a stipend of $25,000 for a research stay in Berlin for 10 to 12 months. The support covers living and travel expenses.

Eligibility

You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website. Eligible are U.S. citizens who have received their doctorates in the last two calendar years from a North American university or applicants who are in the process of receiving their Ph.D. from a North American university and will have defended their thesis by the time the proposed research in Berlin begins.