Datasphere Fellowship Program 2025-2026

The Datasphere Initiative Fellowship Program provides an opportunity for graduate students and young professionals to work on novel research and dialogue related to data governance. Fellows are invited to bring their own knowledge and research agenda to the Fellowship, working on case studies of countries or initiatives that build on their research, while contributing to advance the Datasphere Initiative’s goals of promoting awareness-raising, capacity building, and policymaking.

The work of the first cohort of fellows (2021–2022) focused on disciplines ranging from data quality, the metaverse, and health data, to new norms emerging from Europe, platform transparency, and data governance literature. The second cohort of fellows (2022–2023) centered its research on cross-border data flows, data standardization, health data, data governance boards, and data embassies, among others. The third cohort of fellows (2023–2024) explored themes such as data governance in Africa, sustainability, AI policy, and regional approaches to data cooperation. The fourth cohort of fellows (2024–2025) expanded the scope by examining emerging trends in responsible innovation, adaptive governance models for rapidly advancing technologies, and new approaches to regional and cross-border collaboration in the datasphere.

As the Fellowship enters its fifth cohort (2025–2026), the program continues to cultivate a new generation of researchers and practitioners equipped to address the complex, interdisciplinary challenges of global data governance.