Every year, the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT offers academic-year fellowships to 10 science journalists from around the globe, giving them an opportunity to explore science, technology, and the craft of journalism; to concentrate on a specialty in science; and to learn at some of the top research universities in the world. The research project must be journalism related.

Previous fellows have used their time to: conduct research and reporting for a long-form narrative or story series; develop multimedia, video, and audio reporting projects; do research for a book proposal; and build deep knowledge of a new area of science, among other project pursuits. Regular meetings are held to monitor and help with projects. Fellows deliver formal presentations about their projects at the end of the academic year; many projects are published as magazine articles, books, videos or podcasts after the fellowship ends.

Applicants should be full-time reporters, writers, editors, producers, illustrators, filmmakers, or photojournalists. This includes work for newspapers, magazines, television, radio, and digital media.