Programme Description

About the Programme

The Max Weber Programme is the largest international and most innovative postdoctoral programme in the Social Sciences and Humanities in Europe. It offers around 60 fully funded Fellowships to suitably qualified researchers from anywhere in the world who work in or across the relevant disciplines of the EUI (Economics, History, Law and Social and Political Sciences and their subfields). The working language of the Programme is English.

The aim of the MWP is to provide Fellows with the experience of membership of a vibrant academic community, to which they make a central contribution. It is unique in offering a structured Programme covering all aspects of an academic career, including support for academic writing in English, applying for research grants, the opportunity to teach in some of Europe’s leading universities and to develop a strategy for a successful approach to the academic labour market. 

The activities of the Programme are designed to further strengthen the academic skills of the MW Fellows, while leaving ample time for individual research, and are organized around two core themes: multidisciplinary research and academic practice.

Continue to read more about the Programme.

The Departments and Mentors

Each Fellow is attached to either a Department or the RSCAS, some to both, and is allocated a mentor within this unit. Departments and different fields operate in different ways, some having closer and others looser involvement with Fellows.  However, at a minimum you can expect to see your mentor at least twice a term, and they should ensure you can regularly attend, and ideally present your research at, the appropriate departmental seminars, and become more generally involved in the life of the department. Mentors should also read and comment on the Working Paper and research proposal and offer career advice concerning publication strategies and job and grant applications. There are also a number of working groups that Fellows are encouraged to join, some operating across departments, like the Legal and Political Theory Workshop, and others more associated with a given department, although not excluding members of other departments, such as the Colloquium on Political Behaviour. These working groups also offer a forum to interact with PhD researchers.

Fellows who have been awarded an extension of the Fellowship are primarily affiliated with their departments during their second year. Please follow this link to the two-year Fellowships activities.

The mandatory components of the MW Fellowships are:

• Residence

• September Presentations

• Working Paper

• Research Proposal

• Attendance at the monthly MW Lectures

• (Working) Paper presented to the MW Fellows' June Conference

• Individual page for MWP Annual Report