2026 Summer Incubator
About the Program
The Institutions & Inequality Project’s Summer Incubator is an intensive, 3.5-day online workshop designed to equip graduate students with the conceptual, methodological, and professional tools to study institutions and inequality.
The incubator provides an immersive environment for developing research projects that interrogate how institutions—e.g. state, legal, economic, educational, civic—produce, sustain, or confront inequality. Participants will engage in hands-on methodological “how-to” sessions, “behind-the-scenes” Q&As with leading scholars invited to present, paper workshops, and professionalization discussions, building both technical capacity and scholarly community.
Program Structure
Over 3.5 days, participants will join a small cohort of emerging scholars for a mix of interactive sessions, including:
“How To” Workshops on methods and data strategies (e.g., filing public records requests, detecting site-specific data, incorporating contemporary data sources);
“Behind the Scenes” Presentations by invited scholars to learn and probe how leading studies were executed;
Paper Workshops where a peer discussant will lead feedback on your draft;
Professionalization Sessions on publishing, ethics, and career development in qualitative research.
The goal is to have participants finish the incubator with refined research questions, a clearer understanding of methodological options, and new strategies for identifying and accessing institutional data.
Who Should Apply
The incubator is open to PhD students in sociology, criminology, public policy, and related disciplines.
We particularly encourage applications from students who:
• Are in the middle stages of PhD study (typically 2nd-4th year).
• Are developing or refining their dissertation projects.
• Use qualitative or mixed methods to study institutions and inequality.
Program Logistics
• Tentative Dates/Time: May 12-15, 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM ET
• Location: Zoom
• Commitment: Participants are expected to attend and actively engage in all sessions and submit a working paper for workshopping
• Participants will receive a small stipend for attending and be invited for an in-person event at the annual meeting of a major conference
Application Instructions
Applicants should submit the following materials as a single PDF:
Brief Statement of Interest (500–700 words) describing your research project, its connection to the study of institutions and inequality, and what you hope to gain from the incubator.
Current CV
Paper or dissertation proposal excerpt for inclusion in the workshop. Note: If unfinished, please state plan and timeline for completion before the start of the incubator.
Please send materials to tony.cheng@duke.edu with the subject line “2026 Summer Incubator Application – [Your Name]”.
Key Dates
• Applications due: March 15, 2026
• Notification of acceptance: April 1, 2026
• Program dates: May 12-15, 2026
Contact
For questions or additional information, please contact: tony.cheng@duke.edu
Funding provided by an NSF CAREER Award (SES-2338871) from the Law and Social Science Program.