PhD Fellowship | Stanford Impact Labs

Accepting Applications

A fellowship to support PhD students to work on solutions-oriented research that addresses a particular social problem under faculty mentorship and in partnership with social, public, or civic sector organizations.

Learn More and Apply

The Stanford Impact Labs PhD Fellowship (previously known as the Summer Collaborative Research Fellowship) is a summer quarter fellowship for Stanford PhD students. Fellows are supported to work on solutions-oriented research with faculty mentors and research teams across the university, and in partnership with community and policy organizations. The fellowship provides a stipend as well as continuing education, peer support, and mentoring from Stanford Impact Labs staff.

Several people listening to a speaker at a planning meeting with Post-It notes, markers, etc.

“The program carved out a space for me to be more reflective about what I want and more aware of what's possible. It was a super helpful ‘counterpoint’ to the incentives we're typically exposed to in academia."

The purpose of the fellowship program is to provide graduate students with the resources and skills necessary to work on an impact-oriented research project. For the duration of summer quarter, fellows work under the mentorship of a faculty member. Additionally, fellows engage in weekly workshops on topics such as:

Understanding the social problem and solutions landscape
Co-creation
Engaging policymakers
Communicating with non-academic audiences.

By developing the skills necessary to work with partners from public and nonprofit organizations, graduate students become equipped to join the growing community of scholars motivated by the need for solutions to challenging social problems.

“Interacting with a diverse range of people from all schools, sometimes with similar interests and often with similar concerns around policy work, made me excited to collaborate with others in academia looking to make their research more practical."

To learn more about the PhD Fellowship, please email silphdfellowship@stanford.edu