YIE is a global fellowship for high school students aged 14–18 — bringing together fellows from 10+ countries to collaborate on original humanities capstone projects.
Submit your application and be reviewed by our committee. We look for intellectual curiosity, cross-cultural empathy, and passion for the humanities.
Join fellow students from 10+ countries. Through orientation sessions you'll build trust and discover shared intellectual interests.
Working in teams or independently, fellows produce original work — a paper, podcast, documentary, or creative piece — rooted in a humanities discipline.
Capstone projects are presented to a faculty panel and published on the YIE platform for a global audience.
Fellows choose a discipline that resonates with them and explore it through the lens of global collaboration and contemporary relevance.
We're not looking for a single profile. We value diversity of thought, background, and geography.
You ask big questions and don't settle for surface-level answers.
You appreciate different cultural perspectives and want to learn across borders.
You thrive when working with others and value the creative friction of teamwork.
You're willing to explore unconventional formats and take intellectual risks.
You follow through, meet deadlines, and take your responsibilities seriously.
"The Youth International Exchange Program exists to prove that young people — given the right peers, the right questions, and the right space — can produce work that matters."— YIE Founding Statement
Founded with the belief that the most pressing challenges of our era are not merely technical but deeply human, YIE brings together young fellows from every corner of the world to think, write, debate, and create together.
Each cohort undertakes a fellowship spanning several months, culminating in original capstone projects — essays, podcasts, documentary films, and more — shared openly with the public.
We are proudly non-partisan, internationally inclusive, and committed to the principle that rigorous humanistic inquiry is the foundation of a just and thoughtful global society.
We hold ourselves to a high standard of research, argument, and presentation.
Geography should never limit who gets to participate in ideas.
All capstone projects are published openly so that knowledge belongs to everyone.
Fellows engage across lines of difference with curiosity, not hostility.
A video exploration tracing how oppressive governments have risen and sustained power throughout history — examining the political structures, ideologies, and social conditions that enable authoritarian rule.
▶ Watch on YouTube →This paper examines how the global shift to digital trade has deepened inequality for developing nations, analyzing gaps in infrastructure, digital literacy, and regulatory power — and proposing multilayered policy solutions for more equitable participation in the global economy.
📄 Read Paper →Arguing that the concentration of digital platforms in a handful of powerful nations threatens cultural diversity worldwide, this paper makes the case for cultural data sovereignty — the right of communities to control how their heritage, traditions, and languages are represented online.
📄 Read Paper →This paper investigates why community-centered traditional trading systems, despite their vital social role in providing affordable goods to low-income populations, often trap small business owners in cycles of low profitability — and what policy and education reforms can help both sides thrive.
📄 Read Paper →Challenging the view that aging populations are simply a fiscal burden, this paper argues that investment in care education and the care sector can generate employment, support families, and drive sustainable economic growth — using Japan as a key case study.
📄 Read Paper →This paper examines why the U.S. dollar has remained the world's dominant reserve currency for nearly eighty years — and whether BRICS' growing push for de-dollarization poses a genuine threat to that dominance. Analyzing CIPS, the mBridge project, and local-currency trade settlements, the paper concludes that while BRICS is making real, measurable progress, the global financial system is far more likely to drift toward multipolarity than to see the dollar replaced outright.
📄 Read Paper →This comparative report examines the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 through both American and Japanese lenses — analyzing the diplomatic, economic, and social contexts that led to the attack. Rather than accepting a single narrative, the paper places both nations' motivations side by side, revealing how the same event was experienced as unprovoked aggression by one side and desperate self-defense by the other, and what that divergence teaches us about history, war, and reconciliation.
📄 Read Paper →A structured debate-style podcast exploring whether English as the global standard for diplomacy, research, and policy silences non-English-speaking nations — or whether it serves as a necessary bridge for international cooperation. Four speakers argue across two rounds covering efficiency, democratic representation, knowledge erasure, and reform.
This paper investigates how bureaucratic structures — particularly representative bureaucracy — shape governmental efficiency, democratic representation, and citizen satisfaction. Drawing on case studies from South Korea and international research, it examines both the stabilizing power of standardized public institutions and the pitfalls of rigid hierarchies that can stifle innovation and exclude marginalized groups from meaningful policy participation.
📄 Read Paper →A companion blog article breaking down the key concepts from the research paper — explaining what bureaucracy is, why representative bureaucracy matters, and how bureaucratic structures show up in everyday life, from tax offices to hospital administration to public schools. Written to be accessible to a general audience.
📄 Read Article →With nearly half of the world's 7,000+ languages at risk of extinction, this paper asks what separates languages that fade from those that recover. Through case studies of Māori, Welsh, Hawaiian, and Catalan, it finds that lasting revitalisation depends not on any single policy but on the reinforcement of family transmission, immersion schooling, media presence, and state legal protection working together.
📄 Read Paper →Presented as an episode of a history podcast, this video dissects the most transformative conflict of the 20th century — from the Treaty of Versailles and the Great Depression to the Marshall Plan and the birth of the Cold War. It also explores the surprising role of music as resistance, propaganda, and emotional lifeline, before closing with a counterfactual analysis asking: what if key decisions had gone differently?
▶ Watch on YouTube →This report examines whether the surge in AI investment following ChatGPT's 2022 release reflects genuine technological progress or a speculative bubble. Comparing perspectives from Korea and Ethiopia, it draws parallels to the dot-com era, analyzes the concentration risk of the "Magnificent 7" tech giants, and ultimately argues that while irrational overheating exists, AI's long-term potential means a correction need not mean collapse.
📄 Read Paper →Through a student-led conversation and documentary-style presentation, this video investigates the lives of stateless people — those recognized as citizens by no country — examining cases like the Rohingya in Myanmar, the legal barriers stateless individuals face in life and death, and what governments, organizations like the UNHCR, and ordinary people can do to ensure every person is counted with dignity.
▶ Watch on YouTube →Presented in the format of an international news broadcast, this video examines two competing frameworks for global economic development — the IMF's conditional bailout model and China's Belt and Road Initiative — through on-the-ground interviews with officials from Portugal and Nepal, exploring how each country navigated the trade-off between financial aid and national policy autonomy.
▶ Watch on YouTube →YIE selects a small cohort of exceptional high school students (ages 14–18) each year. Applications are free, open internationally, and reviewed on a rolling basis.
Start Your Application →Open to applicants from any country. Our fellows have joined from 10+ nations and counting.
Fellowships run for one academic semester with flexible participation across time zones.
Open exclusively to high school students aged 14–18 who are passionate about the humanities.
All program activities are in English. Non-native speakers are warmly welcome.
Do you engage deeply with ideas in the humanities? Tell us how you think.
Can you work effectively with people from very different backgrounds?
What kind of capstone project do you want to produce, and why?
Can you dedicate meaningful time to the fellowship over several months?
Shortlisted applicants are invited to an informal interview — really just a conversation so we can get to know you beyond the application.
We review every application individually. There are no fees and no prerequisites beyond curiosity and commitment.
Apply to the 2026 Fellowship →Prefer to write to us directly? Fill in the form below and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.
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