Funding Opportunities

Please notE there will not BE A call for proposals for Summer Stipends in 2025 (for projects beginning May 1, 2026).

Funded by the Center's general endowment and the Ben and Zelma Dorson Endowment in the Humanities, Faculty Research Fellowships provide a semester-long opportunity for junior and tenured faculty to pursue humanities research with no teaching obligations.

An interdisciplinary panel will read all applications. Although the panel will be urged to give special consideration to proposals from junior faculty, there are no "senior" and "junior" categories. The Center's goal is to support excellence and innovation in humanities scholarship at UNH. 

The Center is particularly interested in encouraging humanities faculty to seek external funding for subsequent phases of their research. Proposals that detail plans to apply for outside funding often gain a competitive edge in panel discussions. Applicants should identify potential funding sources and deadlines, and discuss how that funding would further the applicant's research.

Fellowships may be held in either semester. Fellows may occupy a research office in the Center on a space-available basis.  

Application Deadline

Monday, September 29, 2025.  (Please share application materials with the Dean's Office by September 22 to ensure enough time for Dean Dillon to compose the required letter of endorsement, which she will send directly to the Center for the Humanities.  You must still submit your materials to the Center for the Humanities after securing that endorsement.)

Faculty Fellows Application Guidelines

Eligibility

The fellowships are available to full time, tenure track faculty from any UNH department or program so long as their research falls within the humanities and their proposals are supported by their department chair and dean. Fellows may combine their fellowship with a semester-long sabbatical leave, if they have the endorsements of their dean and department chair. A selection committee convened by the Center will award the fellowships.

Faculty who have held Center for the Humanities fellowships are welcome to apply for a subsequent fellowship to be held at least five years following the previous award.

Criteria for Selection

Applications will be judged on the basis of the conception, definition, organization, and description of the proposed project; the significance the work is likely to have in the applicant's field and in the humanities broadly conceived; and the probability that the fellow will complete his or her project or a substantive and well-defined segment of the project.

The Center is particularly interested in encouraging humanities faculty to seek external funding for subsequent phases of their research. Applicants should identify potential funding sources and deadlines, and discuss how that funding would further the applicant's research.

Application Deadline

September 29, 2025 (to dean's office for endorsement by September 22)

Application Materials

1. Cover Sheet
2. Proposal Narrative - No more than three single-spaced pages in 12 point type to include the following sections. Be sure to write for a non-specialist, cross-disciplinary panel of reviewers.
   1. Executive Summary – Write a brief, one-paragraph executive summary of your proposed research.
   2. Project Description – Provide a more detailed description of your project and your experience in relation to this specific work.
   3. Impact – Address the significance of your proposed work in your field and for the humanities in general.
   4. Work Plan– Outline the anticipated timeline for your proposed work, including potential publishers, if applicable.
   5. Additional Funding for Subsequent Research – identify outside funding sources with deadlines and detail your plans to apply. This section may be appended to the three-page narrative limit.
3. Project Bibliography of no more than one page.
4. Vita of no more than two pages.
5. Endorsement from dean. [To allow the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts sufficient time to write an endorsement of proposals for humanities center fellowships, please submit a copy of the proposal narrative to the Dean's Office at least five working days in advance of the deadline for submitting your proposal to the Center for the Humanities.  Please note that all materials must still be sent by you to the Center for the Humanities.  The dean's office will not forward them.]
6. A letter from your department chair is no longer required.  Upon receipt of your application, we will contact your chair for their endorsement.
7. Two or three letters of recommendation (meaning you must have two and a third letter may be included at your discretion) sent directly to the Center for the Humanities. (See below.) At least one of the letters must come from a recommender outside of UNH. Letters should address the significance of the research and the abilities of the applicant to engage in the project.

Please submit cover sheet, proposal narrative, bibliography, and vita--preferably collated as one attachment--by email to humanities.center@unh.edu.

Letters of endorsement and recommendation should go directly to the Center for the Humanities via mail or email:

Mail: UNH Center for the Humanities, McConnell Hall, Suite 102, 15 Academic Way, Durham, NH 03824

Email: (PDF format on institution stationery, signed) to humanities.center@unh.edu.

VIEW CURRENT AND PAST FACULTY FELLOWS

The Center will consider requests for up to $3,000 in support of humanities endeavors, including public programs, visiting speakers, curriculum development, and UNH-hosted interdisciplinary conferences. Our intention is to be as flexible as possible in support of faculty projects that will have a visible, demonstrable impact. They can also provide seed money for projects and collaborations leading to major proposals to outside funding agencies. 

All full-time, tenure track and CCLEAR faculty are eligible to apply, so long as the project falls within the humanities.  

Next Proposal Deadline

February 13, 2026

Project Duration

Our intention for this funding cycle is to award funding to projects to support activities that fall in the spring, summer, or early fall (since planning needs for those projects often mis-aligns them with our usual October CFP). Please indicate your timetable on your cover sheet.

For projects, please submit a proposal with the following sections:

• Cover sheet with this information:
  • Project Title
  • Names and positions of UNH project organizer(s)
  • Expected timetable of project
• Proposal narrative no longer than five single-spaced pages of 12-point type which addresses these questions:
  • Purpose and details about the project
  • Project design and plan of work
  • The significance of the project or research to the humanities
  • How will the project be promoted and publicized?
  • How will the results of the project be evaluated?
• Budget noting any other sources of funding (secured, pending, or still to be solicited).
• Vitae of project organizer(s), not more than two pages each.

For interdisciplinary conferences please submit a proposal which covers the following elements:

• Cover sheet with this information:
  • Conference title
  • Names and positions of UNH conference organizers
  • Names and titles of external co-sponsors
  • Date and location of conference
• Proposal narrative no longer than five single-spaced pages of 12-point type which addresses these questions:
  • What are the goals of the conference?
  • Who are the key presenters, and are they tentatively committed to participate?
  • How are the qualifications and experiences of the organizers and presenters related to the conference goals?
  • How significant is the conference topic or theme for research in the humanities?
  • What is the conference design?
  • How will the conference be promoted and publicized?
  • How will the results of the conference be disseminated?
• Budget noting any other sources of funding (secured, pending, or still to be solicited).
• Vitae of conference directors, not more than two pages each.

Please email applications, as one file, to humanities.center@unh.edu.

Discretionary grants are awarded on a rolling basis to support research, curriculum development skills, travel for research and for external funding development, visiting speakers, public and outreach programs, and other humanities projects. They are not available for travel to conferences in the U.S. (although they may support travel to conferences abroad, in the absence of other funding) or programs, such as visiting speakers, whose audience is limited to individual classes. One area that we are no longer able to support is costs associated with publishing, whether that be indexing, subvention, or other aspects of the process. Talks and presentations by visiting scholars must have monetary sponsorship from at least one additional department beyond the host department in order to be considered.

To apply, write or email the center director (meghan.howey@unh.edu), providing a succinct description of the project, including a budget. You may request up to $750 from the Center.

How to Access Your Center Funding

For payments within UNH (such as catering, space rental, parking, or printing), the Center’s Assistant Director can provide you with driver codes for Workday.

Most purchases (like supplies or vendor payments) should be processed in Ushop. You may sometimes use a Pcard for incidental expenses and submit expense reports in Workday.

Travel and business meals can be handled via reimbursement. You will need to include receipts, or other documentation (including agendas for conferences attended), as well as the original email from the Center’s Director authorizing use of Center funds. Please note USNH policies require reimbursements to be processed within 45 days of date of purchase or completion of business trip.

Services: Individuals from outside UNH will need to register through PaymentWorks to receive reimbursements, honoraria, or other UNH payments for service. Services that are longer term in scope should be set up through a Purchase Order, with invoices for payments. 

An honorarium may be offered to express appreciation to an outside scholar for their time, expertise, and engagement with the campus community, though an amount may not be negotiated ahead of time. Note that international participants may need to honor different tax requirements. For most non-UNH employees, the payment will be processed through Ushop.

If you are hiring an individual, please work with USNH Procurement and/or HR to establish the best way to arrange payment. It may be helpful to start by providing the individual’s name and contact information, their status, the scope of work, the dates of work, and your desired payment. It is very important to do this before the individual has done any work as retroactive pay is tremendously complicated and not always permitted. UNH faculty and staff can be compensated via Period Activity Pay requests, also ahead of time.

Please note that your discretionary grant funds must be expended by the end of the fiscal year for which they were awarded. If you have extenuating circumstances that require an extension, you must write to the Center for approval. 

We are not currently making awards in this area.  Those with public humanities projects they would like to develop are encouraged to apply to submit a proposal for a Hayes Fellowship (if work is NH-focused) or for general Programs & Projects funding.  If you are uncertain of the best competition for you, we are happy to hear about your project and advise.

$5000 Fellowship in Publicly Engaged Humanities

With generous support from the Senior Vice Provost for Research, the Senior Vice Provost for Engagement and Outreach, and the Provost, the UNH Center for the Humanities is offering one Fellowship of $5000 in Publicly Engaged Humanities. This award will enable an individual humanities scholar or team to undertake a collaborative project, partnering with community or other public organizations, bringing humanities scholarship to bear in the context of advancing democracy, civic life, and the public good.  We are particularly interested in funding initiatives at UNH Manchester as well as the Durham campus.

For examples of publicly engaged projects from our first three years, please see our Public Humanities Profiles.

Rationale

Many universities have encouraged their faculty to undertake engaged scholarship, partnering with communities and public organizations for mutual benefit. This is especially consonant with the mission of land-grant universities, which were created for the public good. Faculty who do engaged scholarship typically represent areas of the university other than the humanities, fields considered to have applied dimensions. Our initiative aims to expand the cohort of scholars who practice engaged work.

Our goal is to provide resources for colleagues whose work demonstrates the importance of the humanities for the public good. The humanities have sometimes been critiqued as insular, not able to speak clearly to audiences beyond small disciplinary groups. More broadly, universities are increasingly criticized as remote from public issues, concerns, and priorities. The Fellowships in Publicly Engaged Humanities will broaden the participation of UNH humanities faculty in engaged work, helping the institution reimagine the nature and scope of engaged scholarship. The Fellowships will be one way to demonstrate the importance and utility of the humanities in public life.

Criteria

Required criteria:

• Sustained work that blends academic humanities expertise and community interests, focusing on mutual benefits and a clearly defined outcome, and leading to a product that exemplifies engaged scholarship
• Project-oriented collaborative and committed relationships or partnerships pairing humanities scholars or teams with organizations at the community level or elsewhere in the public realm
• Work that has the potential to attract external funding

Although these are not required, we are especially interested in proposals that include the following:

• Risk-taking and innovation
• Interdisciplinary collaboration, among humanities scholars or linking humanities scholars to colleagues in the arts, STEM, or social science disciplines

Tenured or tenure-track faculty must lead the project.  Student participation in faculty-led projects is welcome.

Community work need not be confined to New Hampshire or even the United States, so long as it represents a sustained relationship and benefits the community with which the scholar is partnering.

The program emphasizes sustained collaboration and partnership with community organizations, mutual respect among academic and community partners, and the recognition that knowledge and expertise are not the exclusive purview of academic practitioners. In that context, the program will not give funding priority to projects such as lectures by faculty in libraries, faculty books written “because the public will be interested,” and other such endeavors, all of which are indisputably valuable but do not demonstrate the kind of ongoing partnerships we intend to encourage.

UNH Manchester

We are particularly interested in UNH-M’s participation in this program. The city of Manchester should be an especially fertile place for the sorts of projects we expect to support, and we hope that UNH-M faculty will be especially interested in this initiative, as well as Durham faculty who may wish to work in the Manchester area. The UNH STEM Discovery Lab, located on the UNH-M campus, works with K-12 students and teachers, includes language arts among its priorities, and is particularly interested in collaborating with humanities faculty, both in Manchester and Durham. Professor Mihaela Sabin, faculty director, invites faculty to contact her to discuss project ideas at mihaela.sabin@unh.edu.
UNH MANCHESTER STEM DISCOVERY LAB

The $5000 Awards

The fellowship awards may be used in any way that advances the fellows’ engaged scholarship. In some cases, the funds may support direct project expenses. They may also be paid as direct fellowships, enabling faculty members to devote significant time to the project.

Guidelines for proposals

Proposals should include a narrative of up to five single-spaced pages outlining the project, situating it in the humanities, demonstrating how it meets the criteria outlined above, and discussing the need for such a project. It should provide information on project participants, community partners, and the terms of the collaboration with an off-campus entity. We encourage the inclusion of a letter of commitment from community partners. Finally, the proposal should discuss the project’s results, including what the community partner will gain, any scholarly product that will result, and how the project is in the public interest.

Please append a c.v. of no more than five pages, a letter of commitment or agreement from the community partner, and a short budget for the $5000 award.

Additional information

For further information, please contact Katie Umans, Assistant Director, UNH Center for the Humanities.

Email: katie.umans@unh.edu
Phone: (603) 862-4356

Deadline

Proposals should be submitted electronically to the Center for the Humanities by October 28, 2019. Please submit to humanities.center@unh.edu. A panel will consider all proposals with a goal of making an award by the end of November.

Resources for Public Humanities

For information on engaged scholarship at UNH and on a number of other organizations involved in public humanities projects, these links may be useful.

• UNH SUMMER INSTITUTE IN PUBLIC HUMANITIES
• UNH ENGAGEMENT AND ACADEMIC OUTREACH
• AACU PUBLICLY ENGAGED SCHOLARSHIP AND TEACHING
• NEH DIVISION OF PUBLIC PROGRAMS
• IMAGINING AMERICA
• NATIONAL HUMANITIES ALLIANCE ENGAGED HUMANITIES STORY MAP
• THE HEYMAN CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES (COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY)
• JOHN NICHOLAS BROWN CENTER FOR PUBLIC HUMANITIES AND CULTURAL HERITAGE (BROWN UNIVERSITY)
• CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE (UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA)
• CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES (UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN – MADISON)
• PUBLIC HUMANITIES AT THE HUMANITIES RESEARCH CENTER (RICE UNIVERSITY)

The James H. Hayes and Clare Short Hayes Chair in the Humanities 

James H. Hayes was a colorful UNH alumnus, a successful New Hampshire businessman, a generous philanthropist, and a civic leader devoted to New Hampshire politics and traditions. In 1992, James H. Hayes endowed a faculty chair at the University of New Hampshire for research and teaching to "concentrate on New Hampshire's history, culture and government." 

There is currently no open call for proposals for the Hayes Chair. 

Overview

James H. Hayes was a colorful UNH alumnus, a successful New Hampshire businessman, a generous philanthropist, and a civic leader devoted to New Hampshire politics and traditions, who endowed a faculty chair in the Humanities at the University of New Hampshire to “concentrate on New Hampshire’s history, culture and government.” Smaller Hayes Fellowship opportunities are available to faculty to develop or extend research projects that fit that description and that might, in time, demonstrate suitability for broader and longer-term impact in New Hampshire and at the University of New Hampshire. All full-time tenure-track and CCLEAR faculty working on humanities topics are eligible to apply.

We strongly encourage potential Hayes Fellows to seek commitments for partnering directly with New Hampshire communities (or institutions or individuals within such communities) to co-create and disseminate knowledge (e.g. traditional scholarship, digital collections of artifacts, public history/storytelling archives) with a demonstrated benefit to the community partner. 

Previous Hayes Fellowship recipients are eligible to apply for additional funding, so long as they demonstrate that the project has expanded or evolved since the previous request.

Fellows will receive $5,000 in direct research support, with an additional $5,000 ($10,000 total) available to fellows with external community partners and/or prior demonstrated success running a Hayes-funded project that has room for new growth (which might take the form of public engagement/partnership, student participation, publication, or other types of meaningful expansion). 

Applications will be judged on the overall quality of the proposal, intellectual merit, focus on New Hampshire, relevance to the citizens of the state, alignment with UNH’s strategic priorities, and clarity and appropriateness of the proposed budget.

As well as proposing and developing curriculum around their research, faculty are strongly encouraged to involve students in their work and to showcase their contributions in the Undergraduate Research Conference (URC) or other appropriate venues. 

Applications

All proposed Hayes Fellow projects must lay out feasible goals and a realistic timeline for development and implementation and include a clear budget with major categories of expenses made clear, including whether you are requesting $5,000 (individual project) or $10,000 (collaborative/expanded project) and, in the latter case, which resources will flow to community partners or new participants.

Applications should include

• a project narrative (no longer than three pages)
• a budget
• a two-page CV for the project director, as well as any additional UNH faculty or other academic collaborators involved
• a letter/email of commitment from any community partners

Summary of Eligibility

Requirements—projects must

• focus on New Hampshire’s history, culture and government.
• be proposed by full-time tenure-track /CCLEAR faculty working on humanities topics.
• demonstrate intellectual merit, feasible goals, and a realistic timeline.
• include a budget with categories of spending made clear.

Additional Funding Priorities—preference will be given to projects that

• have external non-academic community partners (for which applicants are eligible for an additional $5,000 in funding).
• align with UNH’s strategic priorities.
• involve students in their work and showcase their contributions.

Project Duration
Hayes Fellowships may run for up to a year from the notice of award. 

Next Upcoming Application Deadline: 
Friday, February 13, 2026
Please send all final application materials to humanities.center@unh.edu.

We are always happy to hear ideas or read draft proposals and provide feedback.

The New England Humanities Consortium (NEHC) is offering competitive community collaborative grants for humanities initiatives that seek to encourage cross-fertilization of ideas and interests, as well as to generate long-lasting ties and mutual support among Humanities researchers and practitioners from NEHC member institutions with community partners across New England. We seek proposals that demonstrate a reciprocal and equitable collaboration, in which scholars at NEHC member institutions and community partners jointly shape the project’s goals, methods, and outcomes through shared decision-making and mutually beneficial aims. These grants provide awards of up to $5,000 for projects that pair faculty colleagues from NEHC member institutions in collaboration with community partners in non-member regional or local community colleges, public universities, public Humanities organizations, and public cultural institutions. For projects whose total budgets exceed $5,000, applicants must list additional committed funding sources and amounts. Potential areas of funding interest include the following (this list is by no means exhaustive):

● Public Humanities programming series
● Social justice humanities projects
● Collaborative research projects
● Digital Humanities projects
● Shared speakers series
● Collaborative course design
● Exhibitions and Public Performance series

To apply, please click: 2026 Community Collaborative Application

Eligibility 
Applications are welcome from individuals or teams, but the PI must be on the faculty of a NEHC member institution. While the PI of the project will come from an NEHC member institution, projects must be co-created and co-owned from the earliest stages of project design, with clearly defined roles, shared decision-making, and equitable recognition of all partners’ contributions. 

Application 
Requirements and Procedure Please submit materials electronically by 

12:00pm (noon) EST on April 3, 2026

Proposals will not be considered without verification that the proposal and its budget follow Institutional policy and procedure prior to this date. We invite you to share your proposal and budget with the Director of the Humanities Center / Institute at the lead PI's institution for this purpose as early as possible and no later than March 30, 2026. 

Applications for the NEHC RFP must include the following: 

1. Cover page (1 page) stating
● Title of the project
● Name, department/program/school location, and NEHC school representation of PI(s)
● Name and contact information of community partner(s) and any relevant affi liations
● Requested NEHC funding amount (Awards of up to $5000)

 2. Project narrative (2 pages, single spaced, 1” margins, 12 pt font) detailing:
● The goals of the project
● How those goals address the mission of the NEHC and community partners in the humanities
● Nature of and plans for collaboration between the NEHC member institution(s) and community partner(s), including how these goals will be pursued
● Expected outcomes and/or deliverables
● How NEHC funding will be used strategically to advance the project’s goals and partnership, including why this support is essential to the project’s scope, timeline, or collaborative model. This should align clearly with the proposed budget.
● Effect of this project on long-term relations between the NEHC institution(s) and community partner(s)
● Project timeline describing completion of project goals and outcomes 

3. CV (2 page) of Principal Investigator(s) 

4. Resume, bio, description, and/or contact information of the community partner or community organization 

5. Budget and Award Period:
● Total budget. For projects whose budgets exceed $5000, please list additional committed funding sources and amounts, as validated by an attached letter of support.
● The award period will typically not exceed one (1) calendar year and must be stated in the application timeline. The awardees will be required to submit a detailed summary of the project at the end of their funding term.

Please see this document for FAQs. 

Questions and requests for more information are encouraged and should be directed to cah@colby.edu.