Apply for the Cato Innovation Project—Create Your Own Job at the Cato Institute

Alex Nowrasteh

The newly launched Cato Innovation Project asks applicants to propose the job they want us to create for them, rather than seeking to fill predefined positions. This inverts the usual hiring process. The Project will select 2–3 applicants on a rolling basis for full-time positions at a minimum salary of $100,000 and full benefits to work for at least 2 years on their projects at Cato. The positions have the potential to become permanent. 

We evaluate the pitch, not just the résumé. The Cato Innovation Project is open to a deliberately wide range of applicants with different skills and interests. Aspiring policy researchers can propose covering new issue areas or established ones in different ways. Technologists and data scientists can pitch tools, platforms, analytical capabilities, or more that change how a think tank operates. Communications specialists, filmmakers, and media producers can design new ways to translate libertarian ideas into formats to reach audiences we currently miss. Organizers and coalition builders can propose external engagement strategies that connect Cato’s research to communities, legislators, or institutions in novel ways. 

Or something else we haven’t even thought of. 

The point is to uncover talent we don’t know about who could work on ideas we haven’t considered and to open new opportunities for themselves and for libertarian principles. The Cato Innovation Project is not restricted by career stage. Recent graduates with a sharp proposal compete on equal footing with mid-career professionals pivoting into policy. 

Let’s say you graduated from law school in 2022, you’ve been working at Big Law for a few years, and you realize that corporate law isn’t for you. Or you could have recently graduated, and that nagging, crazy idea for how to effectively spread the ideals of individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace is keeping you up at night. Or you took time off work recently for personal or family reasons, and you realized there’s a missed opportunity you have the skills and know-how to take advantage of, but you need an organization like Cato behind you to make it happen. People like these and many others should apply.

Applicants will identify a problem, design their new job to address it, and make the case that they are the right person to fill it. If you have an idea for advancing individual liberty, limited government, free markets, or peace that does not fit neatly into an existing position, this program was built for you. 

Apply at https://​www​.cato​.org/​i​n​n​o​v​ation.