Who Applied?: Class of 2022 National Fellows Program Applicants

New America’s Fellows Program invests in thinkers—journalists, scholars, filmmakers, and public policy analysts—who generate big, bold ideas that have impact and spark new conversations about the most pressing issues of our day.

Every year, we choose our National Fellows through a rigorous, competitive selection process. We seek to support individuals who advance big ideas and do so through projects that utilize in-depth research, keen reporting, nuanced analysis, and a thoughtful storytelling approach.

Over the past 22 years, the Fellows Program has contributed to a deeper understanding of trends around pressing issues most interesting to journalists, academics, and thought leaders. Our fellows have gone on to win Pulitzers, MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Fellowships, Emmys, Carnegie Fellowships, National Magazine Awards with reporting that have been featured on the covers of prestigious magazines. Please visit our impact page to learn more.

For our Class of 2022, the program received 339 applications and awarded 15 fellowships (a 4.15 percent acceptance rate). Here are some observations about the Class of 2022 candidate pool.

An extensive analysis of the keywords submitted with each application yielded the following cloud of the top 40 words used this year. The size of the word represents the frequency of use, and the color-coding of the word aligns, broadly, with the issue areas they represent.

The top five keywords based on the frequency of use for the Class of 2022 are history (18), race (15), criminal justice (14), democracy (14), and family (14).

*Note: Words are not to scale.

Every year, candidates submit applications that speak to a range of pressing global and domestic issues. Given the annual application cycle, this provides the program with a unique insight into the types of issues journalists, academics, and other thought leaders are attuned to in that given year.

Over the past five years, there has been a similar representation by the percentage of applications across the six broad categories. Between the Class of 2021 and the Class of 2022, the breakdown of the applications by issue area remained relatively the same.

To date, the Fellows Program has supported the publication of 134 books, 12 films, and several award-winning long-form reporting projects. While the Fellows Program has an established reputation as a premier fellowship for nonfiction writers, every year we receive a range of new projects that vary in form and approach. In addition to nine books, we are supporting one podcast project with the acceptance of the Class of 2022.

While 67 percent of the Class of 2022 applicants submitted book projects, there was an increase in the number of non-book projects submitted this year. Nine percent of the applicants submitted a film project. Additionally, 4 percent proposed a podcast project, and 8 percent presented a multimedia approach to their proposed project.

Of the broader candidate pool, 251 applicants were based in the United States across 34 states and the District of Columbia, and 88 were based abroad across 37 countries.

The U.S.-based applicants concentrated in New York (64), California (41), the District of Columbia (19), Virginia (11), Colorado (9), New Jersey (9), and Massachusetts (8). Internationally, applicants based in the United Kingdom, and Germany made up nearly 25 percent of the international candidate pool.

Applications by the state are as follows:

While the Fellows Program attracts applicants from a range of professions, the majority of our applicants are journalists (45 percent) followed by those working in academia (22 percent). The applicants by profession are as follows.

The age and gender breakdown for the applicant pool are as follows.

New America’s Fellows Program thanks New America's board of directors, Emerson Collective, the Center for the Future of Arizona, the 11th Hour Project, Arizona State University's Center on the Future of War, and the Education Policy and Best Practice Lab programs at New America for their support this year.

We would also like to thank Sarah Baline, Naomi Morduch Toubman, Samantha Webster, Maria Elkin, Joe Wilkes, and Joanne Zalatoris for supporting the design and preparation of this report.