Journalist in Residence Fellowship

We invite journalists (f/m/d) to apply for a visiting fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law (MPI-CSL) to work on a journalistic project of their choice.

Our offer

With the MPI-CSL Journalist in Residence Fellowship, we would like to enable a journalist (m/f/d) to spend time at the Institute (a minimum of 6 weeks and a maximum of 3 months) in 2025. The dates and duration of the stay will be agreed upon individually. The fellow will work at the Institute and pursue his/her own research during this time. For the duration of the stay, a research grant of up to 3.500 € per month is provided. We offer the fellow a workspace at the Institute; free access to all our (print and online) resources; participation at our seminars, workshops, department meetings, and social events; the organizational support of our press department; and, above all, a lively exchange with our researchers.

Your profile

The MPI-CSL Journalist in Residence Fellowship is aimed at both journalists under contract and freelance journalists from all media sectors (print, online, radio, television) who have several years of professional experience and who regularly cover matters of criminal law, public security law, and criminology/psychology for the purpose of political, social, economic, or scientific reporting. The goal of the guest residency is expressly to promote independent journalism. The participating journalist is not required to report on the Institute’s research. However, he/she is expected to organize one event (2-4 hours) in order to provide the Institute’s researchers with insights into journalistic workflows and to promote the dialogue between science and the media.

About us

At the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law, researchers from all three departments — Criminal Law, Public Law, and Criminology — conduct research, including interdisciplinary research, on fundamental questions of criminal law, constitutional and administrative law, and public security law as well as on criminological topics. Our library is the largest specialized library for literature in its field in Europe and also one of the largest in the world. Numerous international scholars visit us every year. In MAXLab Freiburg, our criminological re­search laboratory in Freiburg's city center, experimental research using virtual reality is conducted. The Institute is part of the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, one of the most renowned and successful research organizations in the world. There are currently 84 Max Planck Institutes, most of them in Germany. The high level of their fundamental research is reflected not least in the 31 Nobel Prizes that Max Planck scientists have received since the Society was founded in 1948.

Your application

Please include in your application a short presentation of your journalistic profile, a CV, at least two samples of your work on a topic related to the Institute’s research, a project outline of the research you plan to carry out at the Institute (max. 2.000 characters), and the desired dates of your stay. We kindly ask you to send the application by January 03, 2025.

For information about our institute, please visit our website.