Resilient Societies

Resilient Societies

Supports resilience-focused research in United States institutions through short thematic grants for adaptation work.

⚠ This may reflect a past cycle — verify the current call on the funder's site.

Resilient Societies is a competitive grant program administered by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, inviting scholars and independent thinkers to develop focused analytical projects examining how institutions organize, adapt, and endure — or fail — under stress from crisis, conflict, or rapid change. The 2026 cycle opened March 31, 2026, with applications due April 30, 2026. Selected participants were notified in late May 2026, with projects running through summer and fall 2026 and written work due October 31, 2026.

Selected applicants receive a grant of $3,000 to $6,000 to support their project during the summer-fall 2026 period. The funding range reflects the scope and nature of the work: proposals involving original case research, comparative analysis, or significant primary source work generally receive the higher end of the range. The program explicitly welcomes international applicants. While designed for individual researchers, team applications are accepted with lead-author framing. Target applicants are early- to mid-career thinkers, or those at a meaningful professional inflection point, working in academia, technology, policy, law, journalism, civil society, humanities, or related fields. Thematic areas of particular interest include governance resilience under stress, artificial intelligence and governance adaptation, decentralized versus centralized systems, market processes as adaptive infrastructure, and civic culture's role in sustaining open societies.

The 2026 applications are closed. Strong work from the 2026 cohort may lead to continued engagement with Mercatus through commissioned research, visiting fellowships, workshop participation, or ongoing advisory relationships. No confirmed timeline for a next cycle has been published. Questions regarding submitted applications can be sent to resilience@mercatus.gmu.edu.