The Becker Friedman Institute offers opportunities for gifted scholars to broaden and deepen their research through its Visiting Scholars program. We are especially focused on attracting scholars with interdisciplinary interests who can benefit from and contribute to the Institute’s uniquely collaborative environment.
These posts, which provide financial support, are designed to offer scholars at any point in their career an opportunity to present and discuss their work with a wider circle of scholars and connect and collaborate with UChicago economics faculty and students.
We offer short-term visits of a few weeks, or longer-term appointments of a quarter up to an academic year. It is expected that Visiting Scholars will pursue original work on significant questions in economics during their residency at the Institute.
We seek nominations of tenured and pre-tenured faculty. Candidates should be nominated by faculty at the University of Chicago.
How Scholars visit BFI: Visiting scholars come to BFI through nomination by UChicago faculty or colleagues at other institutions who identify strong alignment between the scholar’s research and BFI’s collaborative environment. If you believe you would be a good fit for the program, we encourage you to:
- Connect with a BFI-affiliated UChicago faculty member
- Discuss the possibility of a nomination with them
- If they agree to nominate you, they can submit a nomination through the process outlined below
Nominations should include a written endorsement from the nominator, the candidate’s curriculum vitae, and a research proposal that outlines:
- Primary areas of interest and a brief summary of the research project to be explored.
- Possible synergies among subfields of economics and related disciplines.
- Description of how the nominee will contribute to intellectual exchange while visiting the University of Chicago. Examples include developing a short-term workshop; presenting a sequence of related seminars; or organizing a topical conference related to research interests.
We also encourage nominations of small groups of faculty with interrelated interests.
Nominations will be accepted on a continuous basis. For more information, please contact bfi-visitors@uchicago.edu.