Enormous Success for the Digital Humanism Fellowship Program at the IWM

The program has been running at the IWM (Institute for Human Sciences) since 2022 and invites one senior fellow (by invitation) and three junior fellows (by application) each semester. It is based on the Digital Humanism agenda in Vienna and is inspired by the Vienna Manifesto on Digital Humanism. It operates in close collaboration with the Faculty of Informatics at the Vienna University of Technology and is funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Innovation, Mobility, and Infrastructure. It is curated by Hannes Werthner (formerly TU Wien), in close coordination with and with the support of Ludger Hagedorn (Permanent Senior Fellow at IWM).

Junior fellows must apply for their three-month residency with a project proposal and a letter of recommendation, and are then selected by a jury. Since the program’s start, the number of applicants has been rising, and this reached now its peak for the summer term of 2027 with 497 applications from around the world; a huge success that now faces the challenge of ensuring a fair selection process. “This is a major but positive problem, and better than the other way round”, according to Hannes Werthner. The senior fellow for the summer semester of 2027 will be Marc Rotenberg (director and founder of the Center for AI and Digital Policy, and professor at the Georgetown University in Washington).

For more information about the program, visit https://www.iwm.at/programs/digital-humanism.