LEGO Foundation Fellowship 2026 for Researchers (up to $300,000) – YOA

Deadline: July 31, 2026

Applications are open for the LEGO Foundation Fellowship 2026. The LEGO Foundation Fellowship is a world initiative supporting researchers working to deepen the understanding of how kids thrive. Spanning disciplines from schooling and psychology to public well being, knowledge science, and humanitarian research, the fellowship brings collectively early- and mid-profession students whose work has the potential to generate proof that issues for kids’s lives.

Fellows obtain three years of versatile help to pursue rigorous, virtually related analysis, and be a part of a cohort of friends working throughout the fellowship’s themes. In addition to funding analysis, this system fosters a group of students engaged in significant alternate with each other and with analysis, coverage, and apply audiences.

The LEGO Foundation Fellowship is developed in partnership with the LEGO Foundation, and administered by SSRC as part of its dedication to supporting students whose work bridges analysis and actual-world impression.

Benefits

The fellowship affords:

• Flexible analysis funding of USD $300,000 over three years, inclusive of 15% oblique prices.
• Funding administered by the man’s host establishment.
• Support for eligible analysis prices, together with analysis personnel, skilled journey, tools, dissemination, trainee help, and associated mission prices.
• Access to a cohort of fellows engaged on kids’s thriving throughout disciplines and contexts.
• Opportunities for alternate with different fellows, researchers, practitioners, and companions together with at convenings hosted by the LEGO Foundation.
• Media channels to disseminate your work to a broader viewers.
• Recognition as part of the LEGO Foundation’s community.

Eligibility

The fellowship is open to early- and mid-profession researchers from world wide who’re employed by a college or analysis institute and have obtained their PhD or equal analysis doctorate inside the previous 10 years.

Applicants should:

• Hold a PhD or equal analysis doctorate by July 31, 2026.
• Have obtained their PhD no sooner than January 1, 2016, topic to any permitted profession-break coverage.
• Be employed by a college or analysis institute at the beginning of the fellowship.
• Be ready to have fellowship funds administered by their host establishment.
• Submit a person application.
• Propose work that aligns with a number of fellowship themes.

Applicants from any nation are welcome to apply, aside from international locations topic to EU or US sanctions. If your nation will not be on both sanctions record, you’re eligible to apply no matter your location.

Applicants ought to reveal:

• A powerful file of analysis accomplishment relative to profession stage.
• A transparent and unique analysis agenda associated to a number of fellowship themes.
• Strong methodological grounding and a possible plan for the fellowship interval.
• Potential to contribute to proof that may inform motion for kids.
• Interest in participating with an interdisciplinary fellowship cohort.

Selection Criteria

Applications will probably be reviewed towards the next standards:

• Alignment with the fellowship themes: The proposed work clearly aligns with one of many three fellowship themes and reveals how it might advance understanding of kids’s thriving.
• Clarity and power of the proposed work: The application presents a transparent query, drawback, or space of inquiry. It explains why the work issues, what hole it addresses, and what may be meaningfully superior in the course of the fellowship interval.
• Applicant readiness: The applicant demonstrates the expertise, judgment, and capability to carry the work ahead. Reviewers will think about the applicant’s achievements and potential relative to profession stage, context, and OPPORTUNITY.
• Approach and feasibility: The proposed strategy is acceptable to the query, context, and inhabitants. The application reveals a sensible understanding of the work concerned, together with anticipated challenges and the way they could be addressed.
• Research high quality: The proposed work is rigorous, methodologically sound, and may be meaningfully superior in the course of the fellowship interval. The applicant presents a sensible plan for the fellowship interval, together with strategies, partnerships, timeline, ethics, and dangers.
• Field context and contribution: The application situates the proposed work in relation to related analysis, debates, communities, or areas of apply. It explains what the work may contribute to others engaged on associated questions.
• Fellowship match and cohort contribution: The applicant explains why this fellowship is well timed for their work, how participation may strengthen the proposed analysis, and the way they’d contribute to alternate with different fellows.

Application

Application supplies embody:

• An ordinary on-line application kind
• A resume or CV (two web page restrict)
• A analysis summary (250 phrase restrict)
• A private assertion (500 phrase restrict) that explains a) your inspiration for pursuing analysis into childhood growth; b) how the proposed analysis will contribute to scholarly information on the subject; and c) how the proposed analysis will help your capability for management in shifting discovery into apply. 
• A analysis proposal (5 web page restrict) that features:
  • Relevance. Clearly articulate the analysis query you’ll reply.
  • Original contribution. Describe the sensible implications of the proposed analysis. How will your analysis findings be helpful to different students, practitioners, and/or coverage makers?
  • Methods. Describe the strategies you’ll use for your analysis, the kind of knowledge you’ll acquire, how you’ll analyze these knowledge, and steps you’ll take to make sure that the information and evaluation are dependable. Explain why you may have chosen the proposed strategy for the given query. If your analysis consists of human topics, you should embody your plans for acquiring IRB approval.
  • Feasibility. What sensible, conceptual, or logistical challenges do you anticipate? How do you intend to handle them in the course of the fellowship time period
  • Work to date. A short description of associated analysis work finished to date, noting any preliminary evaluation informing the proposed analysis.
• Completed price range and price range justification templates
• A specific bibliography (2 web page restrict) related to the proposed analysis.

Click here to apply

For extra info, go to LEGO Foundation Fellowship.