DIGITAL FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES OPEN TO FACULTY
IN THE HUMANITIES
and
HUMANITIES-ORIENTED SOCIAL SCIENCES
It is our hope that this list of digital grant and fellowship opportunities will help you to determine which
external agencies might fund your digital project.
To navigate, keep the document in layout view, scroll to the table of contents, then click on the page
number for the program you wish to review. This will take you directly to that entry. If you then wish to
learn more, click on the agency’s website address (URL), which you will find near the bottom of the
entry. If clicking doesn’t work, copy the URL, paste it into the address line of your web browser, and type
return.
Before starting any application, check the agency website. Humanities and area studies centers sometimes
have shifting themes and agency programs; application requirements, deadlines, and focus areas are
subject to change. Verify deadlines and other critical information by visiting the sponsoring institution’s
website or contacting the agency via e-mail or telephone prior to beginning an application. This is
especially true for agencies that had not posted new deadlines when we updated this list (we’ve noted
such cases on the list).
Most agencies have deadlines only once each year and take from three to six months to announce results.
Therefore, think long-term when planning your grant/fellowship application strategies. Preparing a viable
proposal takes effort, organization, and effective time management, so please do give yourself the time
you will need to develop a competitive proposal. For fellowships, that means starting the process at least
eight weeks before the deadline, preferably longer; for institutional proposals it is at least six months
before the deadline. Please also keep in mind that the internal deadline is one workweek (five working
days) prior to the agency’s deadline.
Although this opportunities list is extensive, it is not exhaustive. If you know of sources we have not
included, which you believe will appeal to a broad spectrum of humanities and social sciences faculty
members, please let us know. We’re always seeking to add viable new funding sources to this list.
Please contact us to discuss the funding possibilities that seem to meet your needs. We will be happy to
work with you to develop a personal grant development plan and application timeline. We look forward
to helping you to develop your external fellowship and grant applications.
Humanities Grant Development Office
Kathy Porsch, Grant Development Officer
kporsch@ku.edu - 785/864-7834
John Biersack, Research Development Specialist or
Scott Knowles, Research Development Specialist
hgdo@ku.edu - 785/864-7887
http://www.hallcenter.ku.edu/humanities-grant-development-office
Last updated August 2014
Table of Contents
INDIVIDUAL GRANTS AND FELLOWSHIPS IN DIGITAL HUMANITIES ...................................................1
AMERICAN COUNCIL OF LEARNED SOCIETIES (ACLS) DIGITAL INNOVATION FELLOWSHIPS ....................................1
COUNCIL ON LIBRARY AND INFORMATION RESOURCES (CLIR) POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP IN ACADEMIC
LIBRARIES ..................................................................................................................................................................1
ILLINOIS PROGRAM FOR RESEARCH IN THE HUMANITIES DIGITAL HUMANITIES POST-DOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP ......1
TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN RESEARCH FELLOWSHIPS IN THE ARTS AND HUMANITIES ..............................................1
INSTITUTIONAL GRANTS IN DIGITAL HUMANITIES ...................................................................................2
EMC HERITAGE TRUST PROJECT ...............................................................................................................................2
NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RESEARCH ADMINISTRATION ..........................................................................................2
NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES ........................................................................................................2
Museums, Libraries and Cultural Organizations: Planning and Implementation Grants ....................................2
Media Projects: Development and Production Grants .........................................................................................3
DFG/NEH Bilateral Digital Humanities Program: Enriching Digital Collections ..............................................3
Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants .....................................................................................................................4
Institutes for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities ....................................................................................4
National Digital Newspaper Program ..................................................................................................................4
Preservation and Access Research and Development ..........................................................................................5
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION .............................................................................................................................5
Cyberlearning and Future Learning Technologies ...............................................................................................5
Software Development for Cyberinfrastructure (SDIC) .......................................................................................6
Software Infrastructure for Sustained Innovation (SI2) .......................................................................................6
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Individual Grants and Fellowships in Digital Humanities
Note: Individual grants and fellowships are those which you can submit on our own or though the
Hall Center Humanities Grant Development Office (HGDO) without going through the University
of Kansas Center for Research, Inc., (KUCR) for approval. If working with the HGDO please
submit all final materials at least 5 working days before the application deadline.
American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Digital Innovation Fellowships
This program supports digitally based research projects in all disciplines of the humanities and
humanities-related social sciences. It is hoped that projects of successful applicants will help advance
digital humanistic scholarship by broadening understanding of its nature and exemplifying the robust
infrastructure necessary for creating further such works. ACLS Digital Innovation Fellowships are
intended to support an academic year dedicated to work on a major scholarly project that takes a digital
form. ACLS will award up to six digital innovation Fellowships in the competition year, including
projects on which two scholars are collaborating. Collaborating scholars should apply separately and
indicate that their project is collaborative. Each fellowship carries a stipend of up to $60,000 towards an
academic year’s leave and provides for project costs of up to $25,000. ACLS Digital Innovation
Fellowships are intended as salary replacement and may be held concurrently with other fellowships and
grants and any sabbatical pay up to an amount equal to the candidates’ current academic year salary.
URL: http://www.acls.org/grants/Default.aspx?id=508&linkidentifier=id&itemid=508
DEADLINE: September 24
Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) Postdoctoral Fellowship in Academic
Libraries
This program prepares a new generation of librarians and scholars for work at the intersections of
scholarship, teaching and librarianship in the emerging research environment. CLIR Postdoctoral Library
Fellows work on projects that exploit current information technology to forge, renovate, and strengthen
connections between academic library collections and their users. The program offers scholars the chance
to develop new research models, collaborate with information specialists, and explore new career
opportunities. Participating libraries benefit from the expertise of accomplished scholars who can
invigorate approaches to collection use and teaching, contribute field-specific knowledge, and provide
insight into the future of scholarship.
URL: http://www.clir.org/fellowships/postdoc
DEADLINE: December 19 (last known deadline)
Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities Digital Humanities Post-Doctoral Fellowship
The jointly-appointed Post-Doctoral Fellow/Visiting Assistant Professor will undertake, publish, and
present research; teach one course in the appropriate humanities department on a relevant topic to be
negotiated; and collaborate with others on the University of Illinois campus to strengthen informatics
engagement in the humanities. The fellowship comes with a stipend of $45,000 for the year, a $2,000
research account, project development support, relocation reimbursement up to $1,500, and benefits.
URL: http://www.iprh.illinois.edu/fellowships/mellon.html
DEADLINE: October 27
Trinity College Dublin Research Fellowships in the Arts and Humanities
Applicants for the Visiting Research Fellowships and the Post-doctoral Research Fellowship should
demonstrate how they would spend their time working one or more of the many rich collections within
the Library, and/or collaborating with named individuals or groups of individuals within the arts and
humanities at TCD. Applications are welcome from across the entire range of arts and humanities
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research, but the Trinity Long Room Hub wishes particularly to encourage applications in the following
areas of research: identities in transformation; creative arts practice; digital humanities; making Ireland;
and manuscript, book, and print cultures.
URL: http://www.tcd.ie/longroomhub/Fellowships/
DEADLINE: March 18 (last known deadline
Institutional Grants in Digital Humanities
Note: Institutional grants must be submitted through KUCR on your behalf. These often complex
and lengthy proposals require review and approval by the KU Center for Research, Inc. (KUCR.
The final materials must be submitted to KUCR at least 5 working days before the application
deadline and to the HGDO at least 10 working days before the application deadline.
EMC Heritage Trust Project
The EMC Heritage Trust Project recognizes and supports digital stewardship of the world's information
heritage in local communities. EMC seeks people and projects that practice and inspire stewardship
locally. The awards consist of cash grants from $5,000 to $15,000. The award recipients are selected
based on the following criteria: potential size of the audience that would benefit from access to this
information; the at-risk status of the information and why it is urgent to digitize it; and how beneficial the
EMC grant would be to the project.
URL: http://www.emc.com/heritage_trust
DEADLINE: March 31 (last known deadline)
National Archives and Research Administration
Digitizing Historical Records
The National Historical Publications and Records Commission seeks proposals that use cost-effective
methods to digitize nationally significant historical record collections and make the digital versions freely
available online. Projects must make use of existing holdings of historical repositories and consist of
entire collections or series. The materials should already be available to the public at the archives and
described so that projects can re-use existing information to serve as metadata for the digitized collection.
A grant normally is for 1 to 3 years and up to $150,000.
URL: http://www.archives.gov/nhprc/announcement/digitizing.html
DEADLINE: June 11 (last known deadline)
National Endowment for the Humanities
Museums, Libraries and Cultural Organizations: Planning and Implementation Grants
Museums, Libraries and Cultural Organizations grants support projects in the humanities that explore
stories, ideas, and beliefs that deepen our understanding of our lives and our world. The Division of
Public Programs supports the development of humanities content and interactivity that excite, inform,
and stir thoughtful reflection upon culture, identity, and history in creative and new ways. Grants for
America’s Historical and Cultural Organizations should encourage dialogue, discussion, and civic
engagement, and they should foster learning among people of all ages. To that end, the Division of
Public Programs urges applicants to consider more than one format for presenting humanities ideas to
the public. NEH offers two categories of grants for Musuems, Libraries, and Cultural Organizations:
Planning and Implementation Grants. Planning grants are available for projects that may need
further development before applying for implementation. This planning can include the identification
and refinement of the project’s main humanities ideas and questions, consultation with scholars in
order to strengthen the humanities content, preliminary audience evaluation, preliminary design of the
proposed interpretive formats, beta testing of digital formats, development of complementary
programming, research at archives or sites whose resources might be used, or the drafting of
interpretive materials. Implementation grants support the final preparation of a project for
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presentation to the public. Applicants must submit a full walkthrough for an exhibition, or a prototype
or storyboard for a digital project, that demonstrates a solid command of the humanities ideas and
scholarship that relate to the subject. Applicants for implementation grants should have already done
most of the planning for their projects, including the identification of the key humanities themes,
relevant scholarship, and program formats. For exhibitions, implementation grants can support the
final stages of design development, but these grants are primarily intended for installation. Applicants
are not required to obtain a planning grant before applying for an implementation grant. Applicants
may not, however, submit multiple applications for the same project at the same deadline.
URL: http://www.neh.gov/grants/public/americas-historical-and-cultural-organizations-planninggrants
http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/AHCO_ImplementationGuidelines.html
DEADLINE: August 13
Media Projects: Development and Production Grants
Media Projects Grants support projects in the humanities that explore stories, ideas, and beliefs that
deepen our understanding of our lives and our world. Grants for Media Projects should encourage
dialogue, discussion, and civic engagement, and they should foster learning among people of all ages.
To that end, the Division of Public Programs urges applicants to consider more than one format for
presenting humanities ideas to the public. NEH offers two categories of grants for media projects:
Development Grants and Production Grants:
1) Development grants enable media producers to collaborate with scholars to develop humanities
content and format and to prepare programs for production. These grants cover a wide range of
activities that include, but are not limited to, meetings and individual consultations with scholars,
research, preliminary interviews, preparation of program scripts, designs for interactivity and digital
distribution, and the creation of partnerships for outreach activities and public engagement with the
humanities. Development grants should culminate in the refinement of a project’s humanities ideas, a
script, or a design document for (or a prototype of) digital media components or projects. Before
applying, applicants must have a solid command of the major humanities scholarship on their subject,
have clarified the ideas that the project will consider, and have consulted with a team of scholarly
advisers to work out the intellectual issues that the program will explore. Applicants must also have
made preliminary decisions about the format and storyline and located essential materials for the
program(s). Finally, they must have recruited the appropriate media professionals, especially the
producer, writer, or interactive designer.
2) Production grants support the preparation of a program for distribution. Applicants must submit a
script for a radio or television program, or a prototype or storyboard for a digital media project, that
demonstrates a solid command of the humanities ideas and scholarship related to a subject.
URL: http://www.neh.gov/grants/public/media-projects-development-grants
http://www.neh.gov/grants/public/media-projects-production-grants
DEADLINE: August 13
DFG/NEH Bilateral Digital Humanities Program: Enriching Digital Collections
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) in the United States and the German Research
Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft e.V., DFG) are working together to offer support for
digitization projects in the humanities. These grants provide funding for up to three years of
development in any of the following areas: new digitization projects and pilot projects; the addition of
important materials to existing digitization projects; and the development of tools and infrastructure
to enhance the use of digitized resources and support international digitization work. Collaboration
between U.S. and German partners is a key requirement for this grant category. Each application must
be sponsored by at least one eligible German individual (with an institutional affiliation) or
institution, and at least one U.S. institution, and there must be a project director from each country.
The partners will collaborate to write a single application package. The U.S. partner will submit the
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package to NEH via Grants.gov, and the German partner will submit it to DFG via regular postal
service.
URL: http://www.neh.gov/grants/odh/nehdfg-bilateral-digital-humanities-program
DEADLINE: September 25
Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants
These institutional grants are intended to foster new collaborations and advance the role of cultural
repositories in online teaching, learning, and research, this program is co-sponsored by the Institute of
Museum and Library Services (IMLS). NEH and IMLS encourage library and museum officials as
well as scholars, scientists, educational institutions, and other non-profit organizations to apply for
these grants and to collaborate when appropriate. Innovation is a hallmark of this grant category. All
applicants must propose an innovative approach, method, tool, or idea that has not been used before
in the humanities. These grants are modeled, in part, on the “high risk/high reward ” paradigm often
used by funding agencies in the sciences. NEH is requesting proposals for projects that take some
risks in the pursuit of innovation and excellence. Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants should result in
plans, prototypes, or proofs of concept for long-term digital humanities projects prior to
implementation. Two levels of awards are made in this program. Level I awards are small grants
designed to fund brainstorming sessions, workshops, early alpha-level prototypes, and initial
planning. Level II awards are larger grants that can be used for more fully-formed projects that are
ready to start the first stage of implementation or the creation of working prototypes.
URL: http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/digitalhumanitiesstartup.html
DEADLINE: September 11
Institutes for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities
These institutional grants support national or regional (multi-state) training programs on approaches
in humanities computing. NEH strongly encourages applicants to develop proposals for
multidisciplinary teams of co-applicants, partners, and collaborators that will offer the necessary
range of intellectual, technical, and practical expertise. This program is designed to bring together
humanities scholars, advanced graduate students, computer scientists, and others to learn new tools
and technologies and to foster relationships for future collaborations in the humanities. Partners and
collaborators may be drawn from the private and public sectors and include appropriate specialists
from within and outside the US. The purpose is to increase the number of humanities scholars using
digital technology in their research and broadly disseminate knowledge about advanced technology
applications relevant to the humanities. The objectives are to: bring together humanities scholars and
digital technology specialists from different disciplines to share ideas and methods that advance
humanities research through the use of digital technologies, reflect on, interpret, and analyze new
digital media, multimedia, and text-based computing technologies and integrate these into humanities
research, prepare current and future generations of humanities scholars to design, develop, and use
cyber-based tools and environments for research, and devise new and creative uses for technology
that offer valuable models that can be applied specifically to research in the humanities. The projects
may be a single opportunity or offered multiple times to different audiences, although the duration of
a program should allow for full and thorough treatment of the topic.
URL: http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/IATDH.html
DEADLINE: March 10
National Digital Newspaper Program
NEH is soliciting proposals from institutions to participate in the National Digital Newspaper
Program (NDNP). NDNP is creating a national, digital resource of historically significant newspapers
published between 1836 and 1922, from all the states and U.S. territories. This searchable database
will be permanently maintained at the Library of Congress (LC) and be freely accessible via the
Internet. NEH intends to support projects in all states and U.S. territories, provided that sufficient
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funds allocated for this purpose are available. One organization within each U.S. state or territory
will receive an award to collaborate with relevant state partners in this effort. Previously funded
projects will be eligible for continued support, but the program will give priority to new projects.
Applications that involve collaboration between previously funded and new projects are welcome.
Such collaborations might involve, for example, arranging with current awardees to manage the
creation and delivery of digital files; offering regular and ongoing consultation on managing aspects
of the project; or providing formal training for project staff at an onsite institute or workshop.
Successful applicants will select newspapers—published in their state or territory in English
between 1836 and 1922—and convert, primarily from microfilm, over a period of two years,
approximately 100,000 pages into digital files.
URL: http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/ndnp.html
DEADLINE: January 15
Preservation and Access Research and Development
Preservation and Access Research and Development grants support projects that address major
challenges in preserving or providing access to humanities collections and resources. These
challenges include the need to find better ways to preserve materials of critical importance to the
nation’s cultural heritage—from fragile artifacts and manuscripts to analog recordings and digital
assets subject to technological obsolescence—and to develop advanced modes of searching,
discovering, and using such materials. Project results must serve the needs of a significant segment of
humanists.
URL: http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/PARD.html
DEADLINE: May 1
National Science Foundation
Cyberlearning and Future Learning Technologies
Through the Cyberlearning and Future Learning Technologies program, NSF seeks to integrate
advances in technology with advances in what is known about how people learn to: better understand
how people learn with technology and how technology can be used productively to help people learn,
through individual use and/or through collaborations mediated by technology; better use technology
for collecting, analyzing, sharing, and managing data to shed light on learning, promoting learning,
and designing learning environments; and design new technologies for these purposes, and advance
understanding of how to use those technologies and integrate them into learning environments so that
their potential is fulfilled. Of particular interest are technological advances that allow more
personalized learning experiences, draw in and promote learning among those in populations not
currently served well by current educational practices, allow access to learning resources anytime and
anywhere, and provide new ways of assessing capabilities. It is expected that Cyberlearning research
will shed light on how technology can enable new forms of educational practice and that broad
implementation of its findings will result in a more actively-engaged and productive citizenry and
workforce. Cyberlearning awards will be made in three categories: Exploration Projects (EXP
projects) explore the proof-of-concept or feasibility of a novel or innovative technology or use of
such technology to promote learning. EXP projects might explore how existing technologies can be
used to promote learning or explore the affordances of a new or existing technology for learning
purposes (the opportunities for engaging in learning that it makes possible). Design and
Implementation Projects (DIP projects) will conduct research in the everyday environments in which
people spend their lives, e.g., schools, homes, museums, parks, and the workplace. These projects
might advance understanding about how to more broadly or productively use technology that holds
promise or how to coherently integrate several technological innovations that hold promise.
Integration and Deployment Projects (INDP Projects) should also be carried out in the everyday
environments in which people spend their lives, and like other types of projects, they will answer
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questions about learning and about design of technology. These projects will build on research that
has already shown the promise of some technology or set of technologies for promoting learning or
advancing our understanding of learning. These projects might advance understanding of how to
more broadly or productively use technology that holds promise or how to coherently integrate
several technological innovations that hold promise.
URL: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2011/nsf11587/nsf11587.htm
DEADLINE: Various, check the website
Software Development for Cyberinfrastructure (SDIC)
*Note: The program is current, but not accepting proposals
The purpose of the Software Development for Cyberinfrastructure (SDCI) program is to develop,
deploy, and sustain a set of reusable and expandable software components and systems that benefit a
broad set of science and engineering applications. SDCI is a continuation of the NSF Middleware
Initiative (NMI) in an expanded context appropriate to the current expanded vision of
cyberinfrastructure. This program supports software development across five major software areas:
system software and tools for High Performance Computing (HPC) environments; software
promoting NSF's strategic vision for digital data; network software to support distributed software,
software in the form of middleware capabilities and services, and cybersecurity. SDCI funds software
activities for enhancing scientific productivity and for facilitating research and education
collaborations through sharing of data, instruments, and computing and storage resources. The
program requires open source software development.
URL:
http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=5174&org=OCI&sel_org=OCI&from=fund
DEADLINE: January 30 (last known deadline)
Software Infrastructure for Sustained Innovation (SI2)
*Note: The program is current, but not accepting proposals
Computation is accepted as the third pillar supporting innovation and discovery in science and
engineering and is central to NSF's future vision of Cyberinfrastructure Framework for 21st Century
Science and Engineering (CF21). Software is an integral part of the computation paradigm and a
primary modality for realizing the CF21 vision. Scientific discovery and innovation are advancing
fundamentally new pathways opened by development of increasingly sophisticated software.
Software is also directly responsible for increased scientific productivity and significant enhancement
of researchers' capabilities. In order to nurture, accelerate and sustain this critical mode of scientific
progress, NSF is establishing a new program, Software Infrastructure for Sustained Innovation (SI2),
with the overarching goal of transforming innovations in research and education into sustained
software resources that are an integral part of the cyberinfrastructure. SI2 is a long-term investment
focused on catalyzing new thinking, paradigms, and practices in using software to understand natural,
human, and engineered systems. SI2's intent is to foster a pervasive cyberinfrastructure to help
researchers address problems of unprecedented scale, complexity, resolution, and accuracy by
integrating computation, data, networking and experiments in novel ways. It is NSF's expectation that
SI2 investment will result in robust, reliable, usable and sustainable software infrastructure that is
critical to the CF21 vision and will transform science and engineering.
URL:
http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=503489&org=SBE&sel_org=SBE&from=fund
DEADLINE: February 4 (last known deadline)
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