Applications are officially open for the 2027–2028 academic cycle of the Harkness Fellowships in Health Care Policy and Practice. Known worldwide as a top-tier leadership program, this fellowship offers mid-career healthcare professionals a rare, life-changing opportunity to grow. Whether you are a health services researcher, a policymaker, a senior clinical leader, a hospital executive, or a journalist covering medicine and public health, this program is designed to help you level up your career and make a much bigger impact on the healthcare system as a whole.
The fellowship is explicitly designed for citizens and established residents of nine participating nations: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, and the United Kingdom. Successful applicants win the chance to relocate to the United States for one full year. During this residency, fellows engage in rigorous, internationally comparative research to address deep systemic issues in healthcare delivery, equity, or policy design. Working directly alongside some of the top healthcare experts in America, you get to see exactly how the U.S. health system functions from the inside out. You will also take part in high-level management and leadership seminars while building a strong network of professional connections that will set you up for ongoing global collaboration. Just as importantly, the program provides accomplished individuals with a rare commodity: dedicated, uninterrupted time to step away from the daily operational grind to think deeply, analyze trends, and reflect on creative solutions to massive public health problems.
Please note that the final deadline to complete your submission for this upcoming cycle is November 1, 2026.
Detailed Breakdown of the Financial Package and Award Stipulations
The Commonwealth Fund sets up this fellowship so you don’t have to worry about money at all. They want you to focus all your energy and brainpower strictly on your research. As a result, the financial support is comprehensive and designed to cover the high costs of moving to another country. To kick things off, the program gives you a very solid living allowance: a steady monthly stipend of about $8,500 USD. This is explicitly designed to cover your core everyday expenses, like rent, utilities, groceries, and other standard day-to-day costs, while you’re living in the U.S.
On top of that base money, the fellowship sets aside a separate, dedicated pot of research funding. This ensures that expenses such as data collection, travel for your project, and the purchase of any materials you need are fully covered.
Moving across the world is a massive headache, but the program does a lot to make it easier by covering your travel and safety needs. They pay for your round-trip plane tickets across the ocean and give you a settling-in allowance to help with the upfront costs of shipping your belongings and getting set up. On top of that, they build high-quality health insurance right into the package, so you don’t have to worry about medical emergencies while you are living in the United States.
One of the biggest financial perks of the Harkness Fellowship is that they take care of the tax headache for you. The foundation handles and pays the U.S. federal and state withholding taxes on your grant directly, so you don’t have to figure out complicated foreign tax rules by yourself.
The program also understands that mid-career professionals usually have families. Because of that, they give an extra, bumped-up allowance if you move with a partner or dependent kids under 18. Just keep in mind that the exact financial details and local rules can vary slightly depending on the country you are applying from.
When it comes to your job back home and how you get paid, the program keeps its rules pretty flexible. The foundation prefers that you speak with your current employer about maintaining your regular salary while you are away on your residency in the United States. They put a lot of extra emphasis on this if you are leaving a corporate or for-profit healthcare company for the year.
If it makes sense for your situation and your company is on board, you can set up a fully paid leave with your current boss instead of taking the program’s regular monthly stipend. Choosing this option ensures that your regular income never stops and your healthcare or retirement benefits back home stay completely active without any gaps.
If your boss is only able to cover a fraction of your salary while you are away, the Commonwealth Fund will come in to handle the difference. They will add the right to your monthly paycheck so that your total take-home money equals the exact amount of the regular fellowship stipend, making the whole transition remarkably easy on you.
What It Takes to Qualify: Who They Are Looking For
Getting into the Harkness Fellowship is tough, and the competition is fierce. The selection committee looks for a specific combination of career maturity, strong academic skills, and the drive to lead big changes. If you want a real shot at getting picked, you have to meet a very strict set of professional requirements.
To start, you have to follow specific rules about where you live and how you travel. You need to be an established, long-term resident of one of the participating countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, or the United Kingdom.
Along with that, you need to check all the boxes required to successfully get a U.S. J-1 research scholar visa. The big thing the committee looks for, though, is a real commitment to head back home and keep your career going there after the fellowship wraps up, because the program’s ultimate goal is to use what you learn to improve local healthcare systems.
Second, candidates must have a demonstrable track record that highlights significant promise as a policy-minded, forward-thinking leader in the health sector. Because the program values diversity of thought and cross-industry exchange, applicants are drawn from a range of career tracks. These span government ministries and public policy think tanks, health service research institutes, frontline clinical practices, hospital management tiers, and even specialized investigative media outlets.
Third, you must come to the table with documented domain expertise in health policy issues and a clear history of actively shaping or informing health care frameworks. This influence should be visible through past research publications, high-level policy analysis, innovative care delivery models, or clear clinical leadership milestones.
Fourth, everything hinges on your research proposal, which needs to be sharp, well thought out, and realistic in scope. Your project has to make perfect sense for both the U.S. healthcare setup and the system back in your home country, with a clear focus on sparking real, system-wide changes or policy shifts. Finally, you need to bring the right mix of education and actual work experience to the table. This ensures you can successfully pull off your complex research goals while keeping up with the fast-paced, high-level environment you will be dropped into for the year.
The people running the program are deeply committed to ensuring genuine fairness and diverse representation across global health. Because of this, they are actively urging people from historically marginalized backgrounds to apply. They also strongly encourage applications from professionals from demographic groups that are often not at the table in healthcare management or policy leadership roles.
Detailed Framework for Your Application Submission
Navigating the application process successfully requires a methodical and highly detailed approach. To build a compelling and structurally sound application packet for the selection committee, you must organize your submission around several foundational pieces.
You need to write a clear statement of your professional goals. This should be a detailed personal story that covers your career path so far, what drives you to work in public health leadership, and exactly how this U.S. residency maps onto your long-term career plans. Along with that story, you have to turn in your initial project proposal. This needs to be a solid academic research plan that spells out your main question, shows how it applies to both the U.S. and your home country, explains how you will track systemic policy changes, and outlines your plan for getting hold of the data you need during the year.
To demonstrate your experience, you need to submit a solid set of work samples. The committee wants to see three separate examples of your actual work that show off how well you analyze data and communicate ideas. You can use sources such as peer-reviewed journal articles, official policy papers, technical briefs, or even published news reports. Along with those samples, you also need to hand over a clean, up-to-date resume or CV that outlines your academic background, work history, and all publications.
Finally, you are required to secure three robust recommendations. One of these must be an institutional reference from a supervisor or executive leader within your current organization who can speak to your current impact and support your leave of absence. The remaining two must be professional references from individuals who can validate your technical research skills and long-term leadership potential.
To begin setting up your account credentials, log in to the central portal and upload your documents. You can click directly through to the application system. For a more comprehensive look at past cohorts, detailed programmatic FAQ documents, and country-specific guidelines, please visit the official Harkness Fellowships portal.
