Faculty Project Awards

Awards to excellent applications from full-time tenured and tenure-track BU faculty in the humanities will be given priority.

We welcome applications with humanistic content from all full-time and tenure-track BU faculty as well as professors of the practice, lecturers, and administrators who hold a PhD.

The Center welcomes proposals from individuals or from groups.

Faculty Project Awards are designed to fund the dissemination of humanities scholarship on BU’s campus. Applications are judged on the basis of their intellectual quality and scholarly significance, as well as on their direct relevance to the humanities.

Defining the Humanities
The Center defines the humanities both as designated departments and as an expansive and flexible mode of inquiry. In keeping with the Congressional Act that created the NEH, the humanities include the study and interpretation of the following: linguistics; literature; history; philosophy; archaeology; comparative religion; ethics; the history, criticism and theory of the arts; those aspects of social sciences that have humanistic content and employ humanistic methods; and the study and application of the humanities to the human environment with particular attention to reflecting our diverse heritage, traditions, and history and the relevance of the humanities to the current conditions of life. We understand humanities methods as primarily critical or speculative, as distinguished from the empirical approaches of the natural and social sciences. We welcome faculty who share an interest in issues of interpretation and value that are central to humanities work.

Types of projects typically funded: 
-colloquia
-conferences
-symposia
-lectures
-short-term residencies by visiting scholars
-graduate student conferences sponsored by a humanities department

Project Awards Do Not Fund:
-production components of live performance (theatre, dance, music etc.)
-art exhibitions or installations
-projects that are focused on undergraduate curriculum development
-in-class visits by guest artists or scholars
-multi-year proposals
-honoraria for guests who have spoken/presented at BU within the last five academic years

Please review the most recent Events & Conferences policies before submitting a proposal to make sure that your project will be in compliance. 

On-Cycle Awards support projects to take place in the next academic year (AY 26-27). The Center maintains two annual on-cycle deadlines: Nov 15 and Feb 1.

Off-Cycle Awards support projects to take place in the current academic year (AY 25-26). The center accepts applications on a rolling basis. Please note that off-cycle awards are necessarily smaller than on-cycle awards. Since the Center’s budget is set one year in advance, most available funds have already been allocated for the current year. Off-cycle awards are typically around $500. Applicants seeking large-scale funding should apply for an on-cycle award.

All applications must be submitted via InfoReady Review.

The next deadline for On-Cycle Awards is Saturday, November 15, 2025. This application cycle will fund projects to take place in AY 26-27. Please click here to access the application.

Please click here to access the Off-Cycle Award application for projects to take place in AY 25-26.

Application components for on-cycle and off-cycle faculty project awards are identical and include the following:

• Detailed information about your project
• An itemized, detailed budget. All applicants are now required to use the BUCH Project Award Budget Template (*Please do not request shared access to the Google Sheet template. See application for complete instructions.)
• A letter of support from your department chair or program director (please request this letter well before the deadline so that you can upload it as part of the application)

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Please submit an itemized, detailed budget. In addition to expenses, please show all other sources of funding, both confirmed and anticipated, with the amounts. Proposals with multiple sources of funding are strongly preferred.

All applicants are required to use the BUCH Project Award Budget Template
*Please do not request shared access to the Google Sheet template. See application for complete instructions.

Accommodation and Meals

• The recommended price range for hotels is $125-$250 per night.
• The recommended limit for dinner expenses is approximately $70 per person.

If you expect to exceed these recommended costs, please explain why and also seek out further sources of funding.

If your event will require BU catering, please consult Catering on the Charles for up-to-date prices.

Past awardees have used the following hotels:

• Beacon Inn, Brookline
• Hotel Commonwealth, Boston
• The Verb Hotel, Boston
• Arcadian Hotel, Brookline
• Irving House at Harvard, Cambridge
• citizenM, Boston

Past awardees have used the following restaurants:

• Bar Cino, Brookline
• Taberna de Haro, Brookline
• Sol Azteca, Brookline
• Cafe Landwer, Boston
• Audubon, Boston

Venues

Below is a list of commonly-utilized campus event venues. Please contact venues directly for up-to-date rental fees. Please note that most instructional spaces are free to rent.

CAS 132
PHO second floors lecture halls
PHO 906
CGS 129
CDS 1101
Barristers Hall (Law School)
Hillel River Room
Hillel Bay State Room
Kenmore Room

The Center will generally prioritize funding proposals that feature new speakers over proposals that feature speakers who have recently visited campus. 

The BUCH Executive Committee will take the following priorities, established in AY 23-24, into consideration when reviewing applications. If proposed projects incorporate one or more of these, applicants should make that explicit in their proposal and provide specific details.

BUCH values proposals that:

1. Feature speakers who are underrepresented minorities.
2. Make concrete efforts to increase student participation. This may be through both involving them as planners and integrating projects with courses; BUCH does not support direct undergraduate programming, but does encourage student involvement.
3. Articulate potential or intended research outcomes, such as anthologies, etc.
4. Reach across BU’s colleges and faculty at area institutions.
5. Include concrete, specific budgets that are mindful of costs (e.g., hotel, honoraria, etc.) and involve, if possible, sharing of costs by other entities.
6. Name speakers wherever possible and link to speakers’ bios.
7. Express the priorities of the Center’s Leadership Initiative through engagement with local communities in Boston and surrounding areas