Mercatus Center at George Mason University

Funds independent research and policy experimentation through fellowships and talent grants tied to George Mason University.

The Mercatus Center at George Mason University is an independent 501(c)(3) research center founded in 1980 and based on George Mason University's Arlington and Fairfax campuses. It is funded by foundations, individuals, and businesses rather than by George Mason University or any level of government. The center advances market-oriented thinking and classical liberal principles while cultivating scholars and practitioners who can apply those ideas in public life.

Its funding work includes rolling Emergent Ventures grants, usually in the $10,000 to $100,000 range and often around $50,000, plus Resilient Societies awards of $3,000 to $6,000 for tightly scoped analytical projects. Emergent Ventures is open worldwide to applicants age 13 and older and includes geographic tracks for India, Africa, the Caribbean, and Ukraine. Mercatus also supports academic fellowships such as the Adam Smith Fellowship and the Emerging Scholars Program.

Mercatus is unusual because it combines fast, low-overhead support for outside talent with longer-horizon scholar development inside a broader economics and policy agenda. Tyler Cowen serves as faculty director, and the center says it does not conduct research for hire or accept support tied to specific findings. That makes it a strong fit for founders, scholars, and independent thinkers with sharp, testable ideas about institutions, decentralization, and adaptive social order.