Schwarzman Academy Fellowship 2026-2027

Throughout the application process, applicants should consider the overall Chatham House mission, values and goals. Research proposals should align with the research priorities listed below:

Africa Programme and Digital Society Programme

• The centrality of political leadership in driving digital transformation: how individual leaders, ministries and coalitions of commitment within states have determined the pace and ambition of national digital agendas

• The governance and accountability implications of digital public infrastructure: who controls it, who benefits, and how it reshapes the state-citizen relationship and institutional resilience

• The geopolitics of digital infrastructure: how competition between the US, China and emerging players shapes African states’ strategic choices on connectivity, data governance and cyber security, and how African governments extract leverage from that competition

• How African states negotiate digital trade, data regulation and AI governance in bilateral and multilateral forums as strategic actors defending regulatory autonomy and market access

• The governance innovations that digital technology is enabling across African states, from administrative modernisation and service delivery to political control and surveillance, and the institutional conditions that shape how these tools are deployed and by whom

• Strategic non-alignment in digital infrastructure: whether African states are developing coherent multi-vendor strategies to extract better terms from competing technology ecosystems, or whether technical and financial lock-in forecloses genuine strategic choice, and what determines the difference

Environment and Society Centre

• Most effective mechanisms to achieve and just and orderly energy transition in a timeframe that prevents runaway climate change

• How business, finance and other non-state actors can accelerate the transition to sustainable, equitable futures during a time of climate and geopolitical rupture

• Major drivers behind current resource dependencies and how these can be shaped and influenced to transition towards sustainable resource use

Europe Programme

• European strategic sovereignty and how to fast-track the reduction of critical dependencies in strategic sectors

• Interconnectedness between the strengthening of European competitiveness and the integration of European industrial and defense policies

• Europe’s engagement with rising regional powers

Global Economy and Finance Programme

• Future of the US dollar in the international monetary system (IMS): Primary factors influencing the future role of the US dollar in the IMS; different scenarios for the dollar’s future role; and how policymakers in non-US advanced countries, such as the UK, EU and Japan, should respond

• The impact of AI on the global economy: How AI, including increasingly advanced and autonomous, or “agentic” AI, will impact the global economy; whether current governance mechanisms are sufficient to deal with the potential impacts, such as industrial organisation; and new safeguard measures that might be needed

Global Health Programme

• Issues around advancing the African health sovereignty agenda

• Tension in global health diplomacy between the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of individual competitiveness

• How health is being instrumentalised for geopolitical gain and what this means for global health security

• Who is shaping the evolution and transformation of global health governance and how

• Supply chain resilience, security and sovereignty for health emergency preparedness, whether the emergency is naturally occurring, a result of an accident or deliberately caused

• How open life-sciences international cooperation can be in today’s geopolitical environment, and what it might look like going forward

• Engaging the private sector in health security financing

• Bridging the security/defence and public health sectors for strengthening global health security, including the boundaries for health in tapping into the surge in defence spending

International Law Programme

• The international rule of law

• Prohibition of the use of force in international law

• Competition over international spaces (sea, Arctic, space)

• Democracy protection in international law

• International peace negotiations

International Security Programme

• How states can adapt their deterrence strategies as both they and their political adversaries are rearming

• The impact of emerging and disruptive technologies on strategic stability

• How states can deter hybrid and grey zone activities

• Increasing states’ resilience to hybrid and grey zone activities

• How regional organizations can better step up in conflict prevention, management and mediation

Latin America Initiative

• Options for the future of security and stability in Haiti

• Geopolitical changes in Latin America and their impact nationally, regionally and globally

• How Latin American countries can leverage their pivotal role in global supply chains and critical mineral production to advance sustainable economic growth and strategic autonomy

• Practical domestic and international steps to support democratic renewal, credible elections and long-term economic recovery in Venezuela

Middle East and North Africa Programme

• Governance and accountability in Lebanon or Syria

• Strategic balancing in the Gulf in the context of geopolitical shifts

• Governance and regional cooperation in artificial intelligence or climate policy in MENA

• Domestic and foreign policy of Palestine

• Nature of China-MENA relations and implications for regional security and geopolitical competition

• Assessment of conflict resolution efforts for the Western Sahara

• Youth protest/engagement in politics in Morocco and Algeria

Russia and Eurasia Programme

• Russian political economy

• Shift in the Russian political system

• Russian foreign policy towards the Global South, India in particular

• The economic impact of the war and on sanctions lifting scenarios

• Russian supply chains

• Political and economic transformation of Central Asia

UK in the World Programme

• UK defence and security

• UK economic security

• UK science and technology in the current geopolitical context

• The UK’s strategic relations with developing countries

• The UK’s relation with middle powers – cooperative, competitive and conflictual

• UK-EU relations

• Navigating the US-China rivalry

US and North America Programme

• Navigating the US approach to China

• Renegotiating global economic and trade policies

• Redefining international security ties

• Charting the enduring features of US policy beyond 2028