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Below is a curated list of external grant opportunities in support of digital scholarship.  For a comprehensive and up-to-date list of internal and external funding opportunities, visit: https://research.iu.edu.

DH Advancement Grants (NEH)

  • Deadline: January, for projects beginning the next September 
  • In 2016 NEH combined the former Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants and Digital Humanities Implementation Grants programs into the Digital Humanities Advancement Grants program. The program supports digital projects throughout their lifecycles, from early start-up phases through implementation and long-term sustainability. Experimentation, reuse, and extensibility are hallmarks of this grant category, leading to innovative work that can scale to enhance research, teaching, and public programming in the humanities.

Library Services and Technology Act Grants (LSTA)

  • Deadline: March
  • The purpose of the Technology sub-grants is to assist Indiana libraries with purchasing new and improved technology necessary to meet their users’ ever-changing needs for library services, and to provide access to information.  Libraries may use these sub-grants to better meet the technological needs of their community, or to test or implement innovative or emerging technologies. Libraries are encouraged to use the grants to provide educational, instructional, or outreach services, both inside and outside the library.

Institutes for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities (NEH)

  • Deadline: February, for projects beginning the next September
  • These NEH grants support national or regional (multistate) training programs for scholars and advanced graduate students to broaden and extend their knowledge of digital humanities. The projects may be a single opportunity or offered multiple times to different audiences. Institutes may be as short as a few days and held at multiple locations or as long as six weeks at a single site.

​Digital Projects for the Public (NEH)

  • Deadline: June, for projects beginning the next March.
  • Digital Projects for the Public grants support projects that significantly contribute to the public’s engagement with the humanities. The program offers three levels of support for digital projects: grants for Discovery projects (early-stage planning work), Prototyping projects (proof-of-concept development work), and Production projects (end-stage production and distribution work).

​Research and Development (NEH)

  • Deadline: May, for projects beginning the next March.
  • The Research and Development program supports 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 organizing, searching, discovering, and using such materials.

NHPRC State Board Programming Grants 

  • Deadline: June, for projects beginning the next January 
  • The National Historical Publications and Records Commission seeks proposals that strengthen the nation’s archival network through activities undertaken by state historical records advisory boards (SHRABs). The purpose of this grant program is to assist state boards to enhance access to historical records, increase citizen engagement with records, and provide learning and development opportunities for students, citizens and professional archivists.

NHPRC Access to Historical Records: Archival Projects 

  • Deadline: October, for projects beginning the next July
  • The National Historical Publications and Records Commission seeks projects that ensure online public discovery and use of historical records collections. The Commission is especially interested in collections of America’s early legal records, such as the records of colonial, territorial, county, and early statehood and tribal proceedings that document the evolution of the nation’s legal history.

Humanities Collections and Reference Resources (NEH) 

  • Deadline: July, for projects beginning the next June
  • Supports projects that preserve and make accessible important collections of books and manuscripts, photographs, sound recordings and moving images, archaeological and ethnographic artifacts, art and material culture, and digital objects.

​CLIR Digitizing Hidden Special Collections 

  • Deadline: March/April for initial round; September for final round, for projects beginning the next January
  • Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives is a grant competition administered by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) for digitizing rare and unique content stewarded by collecting organizations in the US and Canada.

Higher Education and Scholarship in the Humanities (Mellon)

  • Deadline: Ongoing, Inquiry then Invitation
  • The Foundation’s grants to leading research universities and institutes for advanced study seek to help institutions train the next generation of faculty in the humanities, strengthen humanities research, and renew and broaden disciplines, research areas, and curricula. Grants may be given to Research Universities and Institutes, Liberal Arts Colleges, and Consortia. The Mellon Foundation only accepts grant proposals by invitation; before sending any material, submit an initial inquiry through the Foundation's grantee portal.

NHPRC Public Engagement with Historical Records

  • Deadline: October, for projects beginning the next July
  • The National Historical Publications and Records Commission seeks projects that encourage public engagement with historical records, including the development of new tools that enable people to engage online. The NHPRC is looking for projects that create models and technologies that other institutions can freely adopt.

Mellon Arts and Culture

  • Deadline: Ongoing, Inquiry then Invitation
  • The Arts and Cultural Heritage program supports the work of outstanding artists, curators, conservators, and scholars, and endeavors to strengthen performing arts organizations, art museums, research institutes, and conservation centers. Grants are given in several areas, including Art History, Conservation, and Museums. The Mellon Foundation only accepts grant proposals by invitation; before sending any material, submit an initial inquiry through the Foundation's grantee portal.

​Mellon Foundation Public Knowledge

  • Deadline: Ongoing, Inquiry then Invitation
  • Mellon’s Public Knowledge program supports the creation and preservation of the cultural and scholarly record—vast and ever-expanding—that documents society’s complex, intertwined humanity. The program works with archives, presses, and a range of university, public, and other local, national, and global libraries that are foundational to knowledge production and distribution in culture and the humanities.

​Sloan Foundation Data and Computational Research 

  • Deadline: Ongoing, Inquiry then Invitation
  • Grants in this sub-program aim to accelerate scientific discovery by helping researchers fully exploit the opportunities created by recent advances in our ability to collect, transmit, analyze, store, and manipulate data. The Sloan Foundation does not accept unsolicited grant proposals; for information on how to submit a letter of inquiry, visit: http://www.sloan.org/apply-for-grants/letters-of-inquiry/.

​Sloan Foundation Scholarly Communication

  • Deadline: Ongoing, Inquiry then Invitation
  • Grants in this sub-program aim to empower researchers by supporting the development and adoption of new resources for managing the increasingly diverse array of digital communication channels, enabling scientists to more effectively locate relevant research, network with other researchers, and disseminate their work to the scientific community and the public. The Sloan Foundation does not accept unsolicited grant proposals; for information on how to submit a letter of inquiry, visit: http://www.sloan.org/apply-for-grants/letters-of-inquiry/.

​Sloan Foundation Universal Access to Knowledge

  • Deadline: Ongoing, Inquiry then Invitation
  • The goal of the Universal Access to Knowledge program is to facilitate the openness and accessibility of all knowledge in the digital age for the widest public benefit under reasonable financial terms and conditions. The Sloan Foundation does not accept unsolicited grant proposals; for information on how to submit a letter of inquiry, visit: http://www.sloan.org/apply-for-grants/letters-of-inquiry/.

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