2026 Nova Media Fellowship

Job Description

The Nova Institute’s Media Fellowship program supports outstanding print, digital, and broadcast journalists and nonprofit newsrooms reporting on the complex, intertwined factors that affect health and well-being. We view health as our most basic and essential asset, as well as a unifying lens through which we can transcend polarization. We focus on solutions-based approaches to today’s challenges and seek out stories that will unite us in a more holistic understanding of health and flourishing.

Media Fellows have full editorial control over their projects and conduct their work independently. They are encouraged to pursue creative new stories that are timely, comprehensive, and impactful. Nova Media Fellows have published their work in the New York Times, the Guardian, Science, Grist, Bloomberg, Eos, Knowable, Science Friday, and more.

In 2026-27, Nova will support exemplary solutions-focused reporting projects exploring health, well-being, and our ability to flourish. Successful proposals will do more than simply identify current challenges and the limitations of existing structures; they should also seek to illuminate emerging solutions with the potential to revolutionize how we understand health. We strongly encourage proposals in the following areas:

• The many upstream factors influencing children’s health and well-being;

• The intersection of mental health, well-being, and justice in all its forms, including legal and/or carceral systems;

• The interconnected ways in which individual, community, and planetary health are shaped by creativity, the arts, consciousness, Indigenous knowledge, and/or spirituality;

• Impacts of artificial intelligence on healthcare, medicine, and/or societal well-being;

• Political, social, and/or environmental dynamics contributing to health inequities;

• Regenerative agriculture, conscious food systems, and their relationship with both ecological and human health

The list above is not exhaustive; we welcome any proposals that take a fresh creative approach to connecting the dots around health and flourishing.

Media Fellows receive an award of $60,000 over a 12-month period beginning September 1, with additional generous travel/conference stipends available. 

Proposals are due by 11:59 PM Eastern on Monday, April 20, 2026. Please read our FAQs and apply here.

Questions? Contact Trent Knoss, Senior Director of Communications and Development, at trent@novainstituteforhealth.org. 

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