National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)

Apply to Internal Competition // Limit: 1 // Tickets Available: 1

Limiting Language:
An organization may submit one application per deadline under this notice. 

If you submit multiple applications (including submitting to the wrong funding opportunity or making corrections/updates), NEH will accept only your last validated submission prior to the deadline under the correct Grants.gov funding opportunity. Per 2 CFR § 200.403(f), NEH does not permit overlapping costs.

Executive Summary
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Division of Preservation and Access is accepting applications for the Rediscovering Our Revolutionary Tradition program. The purpose of this program is to preserve and improve access to primary source materials that document the history of America’s founding era and of American government in federal, state, and local contexts. Supported activities include conservation treatment and rehousing, digitization and description, transcription and translation, and updating existing digital resources to ensure long- term public availability. This program is offered in honor of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 2026.

RDS was notified that NEH will not be running a competition for the Summer Stipends program this fall. 

Faculty are encouraged to consider the NEH Fellowships (not a limited submission) as an alternative option. 

S. Swayden (Museum of Art) 

Eligibility: 
You may submit only one application under this notice. However, distinct collecting entities within a larger organization, such as a university’s library and museum or two historic sites within a historical society, may each apply separately. 

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Division of Preservation and Access is accepting applications for the Preservation Assistance Grants for Smaller Institutions program. The purpose of this program is to help small and mid-sized institutions improve their ability to preserve and care for their humanities collections. The program encourages applications from small and mid-sized institutions that have never received an NEH grant. 

 

U of A may submit one proposal.

This notice solicits applications for the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). NDNP is a partnership between NEH and the Library of Congress (LOC) to create a national digital resource of historically significant newspapers published between 1690 and 1963 from all 56 states and U.S. jurisdictions. LOC will permanently maintain this freely accessible, searchable online database (Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers). An accompanying national newspaper directory of bibliographic and holdings information on the website directs users to newspaper titles available in all types of formats. During its partnership with NEH, LOC will digitize and contribute a significant number of newspaper pages drawn from its own collections to Chronicling America.

If your application is successful, you will select newspapers—published in states or jurisdictions between 1690 and 1963—and over a period of two years, convert approximately 100,000 pages into digital files (preferably from microfilm), according to the technical guidelines outlined by LOC. You may select titles published in any language with a valid ISO 639-2 language code (or ISO 630-3, if appropriate). For newspapers published after 1928, you may select only those in the public domain (i.e., published without copyright or for which the copyright was not registered or renewed by 1963). If you wish to select titles for digitization published after 1928, you must indemnify LOC and NEH.

No Applicants  // Limit:  1  // Tickets Available: 1 

An organization may submit only one application under this notice.

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Office of Challenge Programs is accepting applications for the Climate Smart Humanities Organizations program. This program strengthens the institutional base of the humanities by funding operational assessments and strategic planning efforts to sustain and protect historical, cultural, educational, intellectual, and physical assets from the risks of climate change. Projects will result in a climate action, resilience, or adaptation plan including detailed assessments, measurable actions, and expected outcomes. Proposals must address how strategic planning for climate change will increase the organization’s resilience and support its work in the humanities over the long term. Projects are financed through a combination of federal matching funds and gifts raised from third-party, non-federal sources.

No Applicants// Limit: 1  //  // Tickets Available: 1

 An organization may submit only one application under this notice. 

Graduate Education in the Humanities: A National Convening will support the design, development, and implementation of a national convening on the state of, and prospects for, higher education in the humanities. Under the direction of a steering committee and related working groups, the national convening will provide participants the opportunity to explore current challenges and share best practices; offer guidance for graduate programs, departments, and other interested stakeholders; and help develop a strategic vision for graduate education in the humanities. In addition, the recipient will publish and disseminate a report based on the findings of the steering committee, working groups, and national convening.

The cooperative agreement will be awarded with federal matching funds. The recipient will be required to match the NEH financial contribution by raising an equivalent amount from third-party, non-federal sources.

Areas of Interest:

• American Tapestry: Weaving Together Past, Present, and Future
• United We Stand: Connecting Through Culture
• NEH’s Support for the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative

 Limit: 1 // I. Romano (School of Art)

The program continues to focus on stimulating new research in the humanities and its publication by supporting the work of individual scholars doing research or writing. We are, however, introducing changes in eligibility requirements expected to bolster support for new applicants. We are also pleased to announce that we are increasing the award amount to $8000 and expect to maintain similar funding rates as in past years, even as NEH limits submissions to one per institution for those subject to the nomination requirement. The new program guidelines will be posted by June 18, 2024 on our website at: https://www.neh.gov/grants/research/summer-stipends  

Institutions of higher education in the United States and its jurisdictions may each nominate two faculty members per deadline.

• Application available (anticipated): June 18, 2024
• Next deadline (anticipated): September 18, 2024

Due to the competitive nature of this funding program, the internal competition is run based on the anticipated September 18, 2024, deadline.

The National Endowment for the Humanities’ Summer Stipends program aims to stimulate new research in the humanities and its publication. The program works to accomplish this goal by:

• Providing small awards to individuals pursuing advanced research that is of value to humanities scholars, general audiences, or both
• Supporting projects at any stage of development, but especially early-stage research and late-stage writing in which small awards are most effective
• Funding a wide range of individuals, including independent scholars, community college faculty, and non-teaching staff at universities

Summer Stipends support continuous full-time work on a humanities project for a period of two consecutive months.  NEH funds may support recipients’ compensation, travel, and other costs related to the proposed scholarly research.

Limit: 1 // PI: C. Laskowski (College of Law)
 

The Humanities Research Centers on Artificial Intelligence program aims to support a more holistic understanding of artificial intelligence (AI) in the modern world through the creation of new humanities research centers on artificial intelligence at eligible institutions. Centers must focus their scholarly activities on exploring the ethical, legal, or societal implications of AI.  

A Center is a sustained collaboration among scholars focused on exploring a specific topic. Successful applicants will examine the humanities implications of AI through two or more related scholarly activities. Centers must be led by scholars in the humanities or humanistic social sciences, but should include scholars from multiple disciplines. Scholars may come from one or more institutions. NEH welcomes international collaboration, but scholars at U.S. institutions must contribute significantly to the project. This program is for establishing new Centers; existing Centers and Institutes are not eligible in this competition.

In addition to the establishment of a sustainable Center, your project should engage in at least two activities that support research into the ethical, legal, or societal implications of AI. Appropriate activities may include but are not limited to: collaborative research and writing efforts; workshops or lecture series; education and mentoring; and the creation of digital tools to increase or advance scholarly discourse about AI.  

Limit: 1*  // PI: B. Carter (Center for Digital Humanities)  

*UArizona may submit only one application. However, the University’s library and museums may each apply separately. 

Preservation Assistance Grants help small and mid-sized organizations preserve and manage humanities collections, ensuring their significance for a variety of users, including source communities, humanities researchers, students, and the public, by building their capacity to identify and address physical and intellectual preservation risks. The program encourages applications from institutions that have never received an NEH grant as well as community colleges, minority serving institutions (Hispanic-Serving Institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges and Universities), Native American tribes and tribal organizations, and Native Alaskan and Native Hawaiian organizations. Furthermore, NEH encourages applicants whose organizations or collections represent the contributions of historically excluded communities.

The Preservation Assistance Grants for Smaller Institutions program focuses on foundational activities in preservation and management of collections. Collections may include archives and manuscripts, prints and photographs, moving images, sound recordings, architectural and cartographic records, decorative and fine art objects, textiles, archaeological and ethnographic items, tribal collections, material culture, historical objects, special collections of books and journals, and digitized and born-digital materials. Supported activities should fall into the following general categories, though the lists of possible activities are not exhaustive:

Preservation Assessments and Planning

• General preservation assessments

• Digital preservation assessments

• Conservation assessments

• Assessing environmental impacts of lighting systems or aging mechanical systems

• Assessing collection documentation needs to identify an appropriate collection management system

• Foundational conversations and/or consultations with source communities represented in collections to determine culturally appropriate preventive conservation practices and/or initiate or develop accurate vocabularies and/or descriptions of collection items resulting in a processing guide or written report with actionable recommendations

• Consultations with scholars and subject matter experts to initiate or develop accurate vocabularies and/or descriptions of collection items resulting in a processing guide or written report with actionable recommendations

• Development and revision of written plans, policies, and procedures such as emergency/disaster preparedness and response plans, digitization plans, storage plans, collection management plans, collecting plans, loan policies, and processing manuals

Preventive Care

• Purchase, shipping, and installation costs of storage and preservation supplies, including durable furniture and supplies (e.g., cabinetry, shelving units, storage containers, boxes, folders, and sleeves) for the purpose of rehousing collections for long-term storage or display, digital storage (e.g., external hard drives, RAID, NAS, LTO systems, and cloud- based storage), and discrete and reversible units to improve the environment (e.g., portable dehumidifiers, air conditioning units, UV filtering shades, and HEPA vacuums). Project expenses such as storage furniture, UV filters, or discrete units for air conditioning must demonstrate that they will not make irreversible changes to buildings.

• Implementing and improving environmental monitoring and/or integrated pest management programs, including the purchase of necessary monitoring supplies and related tracking software

• Implementing and/or piloting environmentally sustainable preventive care strategies, which may have been recommended in previous preservation assessments or by a consultant, such as addressing water runoff systems to prevent moisture impacts on collections spaces or creating preservation microclimates for vulnerable collections

• Workshops and/or training for staff and volunteers that address preservation topics, which might include preservation and care of specific material types, care and handling of collections during rehousing and/or digitization, preservation standards for digital collections, disaster preparedness and response, integrated pest management, or an overview of the agents of deterioration

  Collections Management

  • Initial steps that improve the management of collections and knowledge of the contents of collections, such as location and format surveys, inventories, updating condition reports, and/or other preparatory steps toward description of collections

  • Workshops and/or training courses for staff and volunteers that address intellectual control topics such as best practices for arrangement, description, and cataloging of collections

    We encourage you to take advantage of the opportunity to hire a consultant to support and further develop your organization’s capacity. Staff can also lead project activities, especially if they are implementing recommendations from a previous assessment or established frameworks. In all cases, you must demonstrate that project staff and consultants have the necessary background, skills, and training to perform the requested activities. For more information on how to select a preservation or information consultant, applicants may wish to consult the FAQs and resources included in H. Other Information.

    Applications can focus on discrete activities, such as an assessment or the development of a written plan, or a combination of connected activities, such as rehousing and updating collection inventory. If you have previously received a Preservation Assistance Grant, you may apply for another one to support the next phase of your preservation efforts. For example, after completing a preservation assessment, you might apply to purchase storage supplies and cabinets to rehouse a collection identified as a high priority for improved storage. NEH will not give these proposals special consideration and will judge them by the same criteria as others in the competition.