Just City Mayoral Fellowship seeks entrants for 2026

The Mayors’ Institute on City Design is accepting expressions of interest through Nov. 17 from mayors who want to participate in the institute’s Just City Mayoral Fellowship program next spring.

Offered in partnership with the Just City Lab at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, the Just City Mayoral Fellowship is an interactive, semester-long program for a small group of mayors and their staffs to tackle injustices in their cities through planning and design interventions.

Working with experts in architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, art activism, housing and public policy, the mayors and their staff will identify how injustices manifest in their cities’ social, economic, and physical infrastructures, and advance their justice-centered goals to address systemic challenges.

This year’s curriculum will focus on moving local projects forward in a time of constant change and uncertainty — specifically, how cities can maintain a vision of equity, address injustice, and advance the design and development of more just cities while responding to shifting resources, capacities and constraints.

Selected fellows will be expected to commit a significant amount of time between February and April 2026, and there will be assigned readings and homework during the semester. They can identify two key staff members to participate in the weekly classes and all of the fellowship’s virtual components.

To be considered, mayors must fill out an expression of interest form and answer three open-ended questions about the opportunities, challenges and potential projects in their cities. Expressions of interest are due by 11:59 p.m. on Nov. 17.

The institute held an informational webinar for mayors and their staff about the fellowship on Oct. 16, and a recording is available online.