DEC Fellowship Program

Our Fellowship Program provides training and mentorship to undergraduate students to engage in meaningful research on democratic backsliding.

OVERVIEW

Learn About Our
Fellowship Program

DEC Fellows receive training in dataset coding and gain hands-on experience by expanding, enhancing, and analyzing the Democratic Erosion Event Dataset (DEED), as well as contributing to additional research and policy-focused projects. We work with a number of partner universities to select fellows. Our Summer Fellowship is a ten-week remote training program with an initial one-week in-person training held in Washington, D.C. or Chicago. We also offer a fully remote Fellowship Program in the Fall and Spring terms.

HISTORY

Training Undergraduates Since 2019

Our Student Fellowship began in 2019 as a summer program in collaboration with the Chicago Center on Democracy and Dartmouth College. It has now grown to incorporate students from many different partner universities, and has expanded to offer programs during the Fall and Spring semesters.

Our Fellows have come from the following partner universities and colleges:

Fellowship FAQ

I am an undergraduate student. How can I apply for the DEC Fellowship?

Currently, the DEC Fellowship is only open to students from our partner universities. Please refer to the list of partner institutions above to see if your university is included.

If your university is listed, fill out this contact form to receive more details about the application process.

If your university is not a partner, we encourage you to join the DEC listserv to stay informed about future opportunities and updates.

I am a faculty member or university administrator. How can my university partner with the DEC Fellowship?

We welcome new institutional partners. If you are not already a faculty affiliate, we encourage you to complete the course interest form. After that, please reach out to us at info@democratic-erosion.org for more information on becoming a partner university.

Partner institutions currently commit to supporting their undergraduate students’ participation in the summer fellowship, including attendance and engagement, as well as overhead costs such as supervision and staffing.