Through its Fellowship Programs, the Ford Foundation seeks to increase the diversity of the nation’s college and university faculties by increasing their ethnic and racial diversity, maximize the educational benefits of diversity, and increase the number of professors who can and will use diversity as a resource for enriching the education of all students.

Predoctoral, Dissertation, and Postdoctoral fellowships will be awarded in a national competition administered by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on behalf of the Ford Foundation. 

Eligibility to apply for a Ford fellowship is limited to:

• All U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals, and U.S. permanent residents (holders of a Permanent Resident Card), as well as individuals granted deferred action status under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program¹, Indigenous individuals exercising rights associated with the Jay Treaty of 1794, political asylees, and refugees, regardless of race, national origin, religion, gender, age, disability, or sexual orientation,
• Individuals with evidence of superior academic achievement (such as grade point average, class rank, honors or other designations), and
• Individuals committed to a career in teaching and research at the college or university level.
  
  ¹Eligibility includes individuals with current status under the DACA Program, as well as individuals whose status may have lapsed but who continue to meet all the USCIS guidelines for DACA available here.

Receipt of the fellowship award is conditioned upon each awardee providing satisfactory documentation that he or she meets all the eligibility requirements.

Awards will be made for study in research-based Ph.D. or Sc.D. programs; practice oriented degree programs are not eligible for support (see eligible fields). Prospective applicants should carefully carefully the eligibility requirements, the terms of the fellowship awards, application instructions and other information pertaining to the individual fellowship (Predoctoral, Dissertation, or Postdoctoral) for which they are applying.

In addition to the fellowship award, new Ford Fellows are invited to attend the Conference of Ford Fellows, a unique national conference of a select group of high-achieving scholars committed to diversifying the professoriate and using diversity as a resource for enriching the education of all students.
 

2020 Competition Dates:

The 2020 competition is OPEN!

2020 Dissertation and Postdoctoral application deadlines:
December 10, 2019
5:00 PM Eastern Standard Time (EST)

2020 Predoctoral application deadline:
December 17, 2019
5:00 PM Eastern Standard Time (EST) 

Supplementary Materials deadline for submitted applications: 
January 7, 2020
5:00 PM Eastern Standard Time (EST)  

Notification of 2020 awards:
March 2020