General Resources for Faculty
Lewis-Burke compendium of federal funding opportunities
Follow this link to access the Lewis-Burke compendium of federal funding opportunities in the behavioral and social sciences, arts, and humanities 17th edition (2023) on BU’s Federal Relations site (Kerberos required). The Federal Relations staff are happy to have follow up one-on-one meetings with faculty as they consider which opportunities to pursue.
External Faculty Fellowships, Grants, and Calls for Papers
American Academy in Berlin
The American Academy in Berlin is an independent, nonprofit institute for advanced study in the arts, humanities, social sciences, law, journalism, and public policy. Its primary mission is to strengthen the cultural and intellectual ties between the United States and Germany. Each year, following a rigorous selection process, the Academy awards roughly two dozen semester-long fellowships to individuals who demonstrate excellence in their respective fields.
American Academy in Rome
For one hundred thirty years, the American Academy in Rome has awarded the Rome Prize to support innovative and cross-disciplinary work in the arts and humanities. Each year, the Rome Prize is given to about thirty artists and scholars who represent the highest standard of excellence.
American Council of Learned Societies
ACLS’s fellowship and grant competitions provide a range of opportunities for scholars at all career stages (from graduate students to distinguished professors to independent scholars) working with varied disciplines and methodologies in the US and abroad.
Deadlines vary by award (Sept-Mar)
Boston Athenæum Short-term Fellowships
The Boston Athenaeum offers short-term fellowships to support the use of our collections for research, publication, curriculum and program development, or other creative projects.
Each fellowship pays a stipend for a residency of twenty days (four weeks) and includes a year’s membership to the Boston Athenaeum. Scholars, graduate students, independent scholars, teaching faculty, and professionals in the humanities as well as teachers and librarians in secondary public, private, and parochial schools are eligible. Learn more.
Charlton Oral History Research Grant
The Baylor University Institute for Oral History invites individual scholars with training and experience in oral history research who are conducting oral history interviews to apply for support of up to $3,000 for one year (June through May). With this grant, the Institute seeks to partner with one scholar who is using oral history to address new questions and offer fresh perspectives on a subject area in which the research method has not yet been extensively applied. Interdisciplinary, cross-cultural research on local, national, or international subjects is welcome. Learn more.
Fellowships and Awards at Dumbarton Oaks
Dumbarton Oaks programs award over 150 appointments annually in the expanded fields of Byzantine, Garden and Landscape, and Pre-Columbian Studies. Residential fellowships for an academic year, semester, or summer are awarded in all three areas of study to scholars from around the world. In addition, Dumbarton Oaks offers one-month nonresidential awards to researchers and short-term predoctoral residencies to advanced graduate students. A program of project grants primarily supports archaeological research, as well as materials analysis and photographic surveys of objects and monuments. Summer schools and workshops bring together students for in-depth study of languages, material culture, and theory.
Folger Institute Fellowships
The Folger Institute offers long-term fellowships for scholarly and public humanities research and short-term fellowships for both scholarly and artistic research. Deadlines vary by opportunity. Learn more.
Fellowships at The Huntington Library and Museum
The Huntington Library awards over 150 research fellowships annually. Recipients of all fellowships are expected to be in continuous residence at The Huntington and to participate in, and make a contribution to, its intellectual life. Long-Term Fellows are expected to present at a two-day introductory symposium in September and to participate in weekly working group sessions from October–May.
Gerda Henkel Stiftung General Grants
Institute for Research in the Humanities
The IRH awards some 40-45 stipendary and non-stipendary fellowships to internal and external applicants each year. The College of Letters & Science and generous gifts to the Institute fund these fellowships, which are open to applicants in any discipline or field whose project has clear significance for the humanities. Most IRH fellowships are not limited by theme or research area.
I Tatti Fellowships
The center offers fifteen full-year post-doctoral I Tatti Fellowships annually, as well as several fellowships for shorter periods. The center provides a tranquil setting where scholars can exchange ideas and carry out their research. Fellows join a community of scholars from all over the world, working in a wide range of fields and often with different methodological approaches. I Tatti’s academic community is rounded out with Research Associates, Visiting Professors, and the scholars on staff. Next Deadline: October 15.
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation offers fellowships to exceptional individuals in pursuit of scholarship in any field of knowledge and creation in any art form, under the freest possible conditions. Next Deadline: September 17, 2024
Modern Endangered Archives Program
MEAP is committed to fostering open access to cultural and historical materials from around the world as a challenge to politicized and nationalized historical narratives that minimize or silence multiple voices and perspectives. We provide funding for digitization as a form of preservation for at-risk cultural heritage from parts of the world with limited resources for archival preservation. Learn more.
National Endowment for the Humanities Grants
The National Endowment for the Humanities offers 1-3 year awards of up to $150,000 to strengthen the teaching and study of the humanities by developing new programs, resources (including digital), or courses, or by enhancing existing ones. Updated guidelines will be posted in advance of the next deadline. In the meantime, please use these guidelines to get a sense of what is involved in assembling an application.
Projects must be organized around a core topic or set of themes drawn from such areas of study in the humanities as history, philosophy, religion, literature, and composition and writing skills.
NEH welcomes applications for projects that are modest in scope, duration, and budget, as well as applications for expansive, long-term projects.
National Geographic Society and John Templeton Foundation Big Questions Award
Supported by the John Templeton Foundation, The National Geographic Society seeks innovative photography, short film, writing, data visualization and other storytelling proposals to help people consider some of the greatest questions of our time.
National Humanities Center Fellowships 2025-2026
The National Humanities Center invites applications for academic-year or one-semester residential fellowships. Mid-career, senior, and emerging scholars with a strong record of peer-reviewed work from all areas of the humanities are encouraged to apply.
Scholars from all parts of the globe are eligible; stipends and travel expenses are provided. Fellowship applicants must have a PhD or equivalent scholarly credentials. Fellowships are supported by the Center’s own endowment, private foundation grants, contributions from alumni and friends, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Located in the vibrant Research Triangle region of North Carolina, the Center affords access to the rich cultural and intellectual communities supported by the area’s research institutes, universities, and dynamic arts scene. Fellows enjoy private studies, in-house dining, and superb library services that deliver all research materials.
PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants
The PEN/Heim Translation Fund was established in the summer of 2003 by an endowed gift of $730,000 from Michael Henry Heim and Priscilla Heim, in response to the dismayingly low number of literary translations currently appearing in English. Its purpose is to promote the publication and reception of translated international literature in English.
Radcliffe Institute Fellowships
Read about How to Become a Fellow.
Radcliffe fellows are exceptional scientists, writers, scholars, public intellectuals, practitioners, and artists whose work is making a difference in their professional fields and in the larger world.
Based in Radcliffe Yard—a sanctuary in the heart of Harvard University—fellows join a uniquely interdisciplinary and creative community. A fellowship at Radcliffe is an opportunity to step away from usual routines and dive deeply into a project. With access to Harvard’s unparalleled resources, Radcliffe fellows develop new tools and methods, challenge artistic and scholarly conventions, and illuminate our past and our present.
Society of Fellows at Cornell University
The Society for the Humanities at Cornell University seeks fellows for year-long residential fellowships who are conducting interdisciplinary research projects exploring the literary, historical, ethical, and political registers of survival.
We invite humanistic engagement on what it means to live in moments that are marked by precarity, fragility, and catastrophe. What might it mean to flourish in a world on the brink of extinction or exhaustion? Survival can be individual or collective, shaped by cultural imperatives, ideological commitments, or existential negotiations in the face of political, economic, environmental, social, and technological upheavals. Under these conditions, survival is more than living: survival can be a form of living on, a form of sustenance. We ask: what practices and imaginaries survive as individuals, movements, or species confront erasure? How does sudden or slow violence produce ways of surviving? Is refusal, dissent, resilience, or renewal sufficient to counter destructive forces?
Stanford Humanities Center Fellowships
External fellowships are intended primarily for individuals currently teaching in or affiliated with an academic institution, but independent scholars may apply. Faculty fellowships are awarded across the spectrum of academic ranks (assistant, associate, and full professor) and a goal of the selection process is to create a diverse community of scholars. Applicants who are members of traditionally under-represented groups are encouraged to apply. There are no citizenship requirements for these fellowships; non-U.S. nationals are welcome to apply. Awards are made from an applicant pool of approximately 350.
Wolfsonian Fellowships
Wolfsonian fellowships engage scholars and artists around the world with resources held in the museum’s trust and with the possibilities contained in dedicated study and interpretation of the modern age. Next Deadline: April 30, 2026.
General Boston University Faculty Fellowships, Grants, and Calls for Papers
Pskowski Junior Faculty Research Fund in the Humanities
Individual awards up to a maximum of $2500 are available to tenure-track assistant professors completing a major research project in preparation for tenure review. To be eligible to apply, the faculty member must be a tenure-track professorial faculty member in a humanities department.
BU Arts Initiative Grants
To encourage the continued development of an intellectual community around the arts and arts practice at BU and enhance our student-life experience, the BU Arts Initiative offers research grants for graduate and undergraduate research, as well as grants to faculty, students, and staff for projects that directly engage students in the arts. Committees of faculty, staff, and students review all proposals. All BU Arts Initiative arts grants are subject to fiscal year restrictions and must be used in the fiscal year awarded.
BU Diversity & Inclusion
Several grants offered. Learn more.
Deadlines vary by award
Jewish Cultural Endowment
The Jewish Cultural Endowment (JCE) supports Jewish cultural programs across the University, sponsoring lectures, conferences, literary events, curricular enhancement, and artistic performances and exhibitions. Its mission is to foster an appreciation of Jewish culture in all its richness and diversity. Deadlines vary by award.
Virginia Sapiro Academic Enhancement Fund
The Virginia Sapiro Academic Enhancement Fund (AEF) enables CAS faculty members to build experiential learning (EL) into undergraduate CAS courses, using historic and contemporary Boston as an extended classroom and taking advantage of the city and University as magnets for leading academics, artists, industry professionals, and experts in diverse subject areas. Learn more.
For an overview of BU Center for the Humanities faculty opportunities with links, please see the Opportunities for Faculty Members page on this Web site.