Charlemagne Prize Fellowship 2021/2022

Restrictions are decreasing and you are still looking for a new challenge in the coming year? Your own experiences and the public discourse in recent months have inspired you to bring new issues and approaches for future crises and challenges into the debate?

For the 3rd time, we’re looking for innovative research ideas and creative approaches to Europe’s challenges of tomorrow!

The Charlemagne Prize Fellowship is an endowed 1-year programme of the Charlemagne Prize Academy. The programme provides a grant of 25,000 € per research project, academic mentoring and networking opportunities.

Graduates, Young Professionals, Junior Researchers or employees of scientific or political institutes are invited to submit their research proposal on a question that focuses on an issue with a certain relevance for Europe's future.

The research projects will be carried out independently by the candidates under academic supervision in their respective countries of residence or at the local offices of an institution of choice. The main goal of the programme is to promote new ideas and approaches that are already discussing tomorrow’s challenges today, supporting creative minds and independent workers, who are at the beginning of their academic or professional career. The call is open to all research disciplines and to various backgrounds.
 

Application Requirements:

• postgraduate degree (Master or equivalent)
• younger than 35 years of age
• professional English language skills
• citizen of an EU member state or permanent residence in Europe
• submission of an innovative Research Proposal, compatible with the annual focus
• current and prospective relevance of the proposed research question
• first proposal of a host institution for the duration of the Fellowship

Application deadline:

4 July 2021

Submission of the application via our online portal is required:

https://www.charlemagneprizeacademy.com/en/fellowship-programme/application-process

Annual Focus:

Shaping the Change - How Can Europe Succeed in a World of Transformation?

The global pandemic, which has been ongoing for more than a year, has shifted priorities and made creative solutions to unexpected challenges more welcomed than ever. Being titled as crisis,as social break or as challenge in the course of the new decade, with effects for our future that seem hardly foreseeable, the current situation brings with it opportunities and risks to react to innovations, to implement them and to anchor significant changes. Yet, in this time of upheaval,where does Europe stand?

While the debates are dominated by questions and problems of the near future at the moment, beit with regard to joint solutions for mutual support in the fight against the pandemic or for uniform approaches in the return to pre-pandemic life, the crisis has also worked as an accelerator, which puts a high number of issues to the test. The ongoing period of uncertainty has made it clear to us that it is important to identify issues and solutions today that could challenge us in the further future. By generating thoughts on what the Europe of tomorrow might look like,taking into account different perspectives and areas, there is now an opportunity to develop scenarios at an early stage that identify problems and solutions in order to shape the prospective change we’re currently facing.

How can Europe – its people, companies, institutions, youth and partnerships - succeed in meeting the demands of these and forthcoming times in a way that is prompt, relevant, modern and feasible for all?

While the current crisis has slowed down social interaction, it has intensified previously timid transformation processes, whose success also define the overall outcome for society. Now, with the Conference on the Future of Europe, the European Union is already taking a first step towards addressing how the EU can strengthen its joint capacity to act and move forward in expanding the involvement of the European people. Another task will be to regularly revise the requirements to which Europe will have to respond, as well as to integrate new input for the discussions that are yet to come.

Therefore, we’re looking for research projects that offer proposals, approaches, ideas and actual role models on how Europe can succeed in responding to the future challenges and harness the drive for change. The fellowship programme is open to projects of all forms and disciplines that offer concrete, innovative and feasible solutions to the European challenges of tomorrow. We are highly encouraging interested young researchers of all fields

The International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen

Founded by a citizens' initiative, the International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen has been awarded annually since 1950 to personalities or actors who have rendered outstanding services to Europe and European unification. Due to the outstanding importance of the laureates and their special services to Europe and European unification, the Charlemagne Prize has developed into a highly prestigious award and is today regarded as the most important European prize – with high prestige and political weight.

With its award ceremonies and laureates, the Charlemagne Prize vividly reflects the history of the European unification process. The founding fathers of the United Europe – Schuman, Monnet, de Gasperi, Spaak, Adenauer – were honoured just as much as the bearers of hope of enlargement and deepening, those responsible for the democratic institutions, the protagonists of the reunification of East and West, the European thinkers, achievers and initiators on an intellectual, cultural and social level.

The Charlemagne Prize Foundation represents a long-term development process of expanding the International Charlemagne Prize from a (one-day) award ceremony to a (perennial) platform for intensive discourse on the progress of European integration. The latest project of the Charlemagne Prize Foundation is specifically aimed at young academics: Within the framework of the (virtual) Charlemagne Prize Academy established in 2019, important future topics of the European Union are to be defined and innovative approaches to solutions for the challenges ahead are to be developed. This initiative complements the Foundation's various programmes, such as the broad public Side-Programme, the Karlspreis-Europa-Forum or the Charlemagne Youth Prize.