Oversight Fellowship Program

We launched our oversight fellowship program in 2021 and are awarding one or more non-resident fellowship annually to early career scholars to promote and advance research efforts in oversight.

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Applications are now open – please scroll down for the application form!

Overview of Fellowship Program

We are pleased to announce that we are seeking applicants for our Levin Center Oversight Fellows Program to encourage scholarly research on oversight investigations conducted by Congress or the 50 state legislatures and related topics.

The Levin Center seeks to promote research on oversight by legislative bodies with the ultimate goal of fostering high-quality fact-finding and oversight investigations that are not captive to partisan interests. This fellowship program is established to encourage scholars early in their careers, including post-doctoral students and professors, to conduct research and produce papers with useful research results related to oversight by legislators.

Each year, the fellowship offers between $10,000 and $20,000 to support a varying number of one-year, non-resident scholar(s) to conduct research and produce a scholarly paper on issues related to congressional or state-level oversight. Research topics may include issues such as:  

  • Constitutional and political theories underlying oversight;
  • Optimal staffing for oversight committees;
  • Measures to gauge the extent and effectiveness of bipartisan oversight;
  • Impact of oversight on policy outcomes;
  • How legislative fact-finding affects the public’s understanding of issues;
  • How legislative oversight interacts with efforts by the media and other actors to hold government accountable;
  • Oversight performance measures;
  • Oversight decision-making styles;
  • Consensus factfinding;
  • Examining oversight gaps;
  • Developing new oversight databases or committee oversight dashboards;
  • History of oversight in a particular subject area or committee;
  • History of one or more famous oversight practitioners; and
  • Other oversight-related issues on the congressional or state level.

There are no teaching obligations. Funding may be used to compensate the scholars’ work and defray research expenses related to, for example, obtaining research data, engaging in travel, or hiring an assistant.  Funds will be paid out in multiple installments over the Fellowship.

The Fellow must agree to present the resulting research paper at an event sponsored by the Levin Center and for the paper and event to be promoted through academic channels, including the Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy’s website and list-serves.  The Levin Center may offer an opportunity to publish the paper in a law review or journal sponsored by Wayne State University Law School.  

Fellowship Timeline

December 1

January 31

February / March

June 1

February 1

March 31

May 31

Applications Open

Applications Close

Review and Interviews

Start of Fellowship

Draft Fellowship Paper Submission Deadline

Final Fellowship Paper Submission Deadline

End of Fellowship

Application

The deadline for our 2024 Fellowship Program has now expired. To apply for the 2024 Oversight Fellowships, please check back in December 2024, when the application re-opens.

2023/24 Fellowship

2022/23 Fellowship

2021/22 Fellowship

2022/23 Oversight Fellows Presentation:

May 30, 2023