Selected Open Funding Opportunities
RDO curates this list of open funding opportunities in the Humanities, Arts, and Interpretive Social Sciences to highlight large, collaborative, and/or strategic funding opportunities that may be of particular interest to the Stanford community. Opportunity descriptions have been compiled from funder announcements, program solicitations, and CFR. This page will be updated regularly to spotlight new opportunities. See RDO's archive (SUNet ID required) for opportunities previously featured on this list.
| Title/Sponsor | Deadline | Description | Amount/Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| William T. Grant Research Grants on Reducing Inequality | 5/1/24 | Research grants on reducing inequality fund research studies that aim to build, test, or increase understanding of programs, policies, or practices to reduce inequality in the academic, social, behavioral, or economic outcomes of young people ages 5-25 in the United States. | $100,000 to $600,000 |
| William T. Grant Research Grants on Improving the Use of Research Evidence | 5/1/24 | This program fund research studies that advance theory and build empirical knowledge on ways to improve the use of research evidence by policymakers, agency leaders, organizational managers, intermediaries, and other decision-makers that shape youth-serving systems in the United States. | $100,000 to $1,000,000 |
| NEH Humanities Initiatives (20240507-AA-AB-AC-AD-ED) | 5/7/24 (optional draft due 3/26/24) | This program supports the development of new or enhanced programs, educational resources, or courses that explore, interpret, and preserve the diversity of human cultures, ideas, and practices. Past recipients have launched a committee on manuscript, rare book, and archive studies; revised their curriculum through a week-long faculty study group examining place; and created an interactive map and database that highlights diverse regional histories and will be used in several courses. | up to $150,000 |
| NHPRC-Mellon Planning Grants for Collaborative Digital Editions in African American, Asian American, Hispanic American, and Native American History and Ethnic Studies | 6/7/24 (optional draft due 4/1/24) |
This National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) program awards planning grants for the creation of digital editions to collaborative teams consisting of at least two scholar-editors, as well as one or more archivists, digital scholars, data curators, and/or other support and technical staff. Before beginning the process, applicants are strongly encouraged to contact the Deputy Executive Director and Director for Publishing, Darrell Meadows. |
up to $120,000 |
| William T. Grant Scholars Program |
Limited Submission deadline: first-come first-serve for H&S Funder deadline: 7/3/24 |
The William T. Grant Scholars Program supports career development for promising early-career researchers. The program funds five-year research and mentoring plans that significantly expand researchers' expertise in new disciplines, methods, and content areas. Proposed research should address one of the following focus areas: 1) reducing inequality, and 2) improving the use of research evidence. |
$350,000 |
| NEH Digital Projects for the Public (20240612-MD-MDN-MT) | 6/12/24 (optional draft due 5/1/24) | This program supports projects that interpret and analyze humanities content in primarily digital platforms and formats, such as websites, mobile applications and tours, interactive touch screens and kiosks, games, and virtual environments. All projects should demonstrate the potential to attract a broad, general, nonspecialist audience, either online or in person at venues such as museums, libraries, or other cultural institutions. | Discovery: up to $30,000 Prototyping: up to $100,000 Production: up to $400,000 |
| Luce/ACLS Collaborative Grant in China Studies | 6/13/24 |
This collaborative grant supports innovative pilot activities that initiate long-term transformative change in the field of China Studies. The group may apply to design and pilot activities that solve specific, pressing challenges in the field over a 12- to 18-month period. The collaborative grant will serve to test and refine promising solutions; to produce recommendations for those activities to be adopted at scale in universities and colleges; and to identify strategies for long-term sustainability. Note that the Luce/ACLS Program in China Studies also offers early career fellowships and travel grants. |
up to $150,000 |
| NEH Digital Humanities Advancement Grants (20240111-HAA) | 6/13/24 (optional draft due 4/15/24) |
The DHAG program supports innovative, experimental, and/or computationally challenging digital projects leading to work that can scale to enhance scholarly research, teaching, and public programming in the humanities. |
Level I: up to $75,000; Level II: up to $150,000; Level III: up to $350,000 + $100K in matching funds |
|
NSF Linguistics Program Grants (PD 98-1311) |
7/15/24 |
The Linguistics Program supports research on human language — encompassing investigations of the properties of individual human languages and natural language in general — and the intersections of linguistics with cognition, society and other areas of science. |
varies, depending on project type |
| VIA Art Artistic Production Grants | 11/9/24 (Letter of Intent) | These grants support new artistic commissions that take place outside museum or gallery walls, within the public realm, or in nontraditional exhibition environments. Individual artists or producing organizations seeking production funding must have a confirmed exhibition venue or presenting partner. Grants at the upper levels of funding are reserved for permanent or long-term installations, or newly commissioned works that may be gifted to a U.S. public collection. These grants are awarded to projects that best exemplify our three core values of Artistic Production, Thought Leadership, and Public Engagement. | $25,000 to $100,000 |
Federal (and some non-federal) opportunities are subject to the university's Facilities & Administration (F&A) cost rates. For many foundation funders, the university has approved lower rates, which can be found in the Pre-Approved IDC Exception List.
For some foundations you must request clearance to apply. Be sure to check CFR's Clearance Restricted Foundations list before submitting a letter of inquiry or proposal.
Recurring Funding Opportunities by Topic
- Digital Humanities Research, last update January 2023
- Public Humanities Research, last update January 2023
- Funding Opportunities for Collaborative Research from the National Endowment for the Humanities, last update May 2023
- Recurring Limited Submissions Programs
Other Resources
- Pursuing Extramural Funding - A Primer for Faculty in the Humanities, Arts, and Interpretive Social Sciences: This resource, created by RDO for Stanford faculty in the Humanities, Arts, and Interpretive Social Sciences, provides a general overview of the process of applying for extramural funding as a Principal Investigator (PI) at Stanford.
- Stanford University's Corporate and Foundation Relations (CFR) maintains a more comprehensive list of foundation funding opportunities. The CFR team can also provide insight around funding priorities and application processes for private funders, as well as tailored prospect research.
- DoResearch's Find Funding links to university-supported resources, including Pivot and grants.gov, that allow the user to search funding opportunities in their area(s) of interest.
- The National Research Council (NRC) has identified a list of awards in a range of disciplines that include research/scholarship awards, fellowships, and memberships in honorary societies.
Funding Opportunities in Other Disciplines
- The RDO team also curates a list of funding opportunities for researchers in STEM*, including social scientists who employ quantitative methods.
- The Research Management Group at Stanford's School of Medicine keeps a list of funding opportunities for medical researchers.