Funding Opportunities

National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipends (for projects beginning May 1, 2025)

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Stipend competition consists of two phases.

PHASE I: PRELIMINARY PROPOSALS*
UNH DEADLINE: AUGUST 21, 2024

The Center for the Humanities invites interested faculty to submit preliminary NEH Summer Stipend proposals by 11:59 pm ET on Wednesday, August 21, 2024. The preliminary proposal must include a cover letter, narrative, workplan, bibliography, and CV (compiled and submitted as one Doc or PDF, please). See guidelines below. The NEH requires institutional nomination for tenured and tenure-track faculty; non-tenure-track faculty are exempt from nominating requirements.  A panel of UNH faculty will meet to recommend a nominee for the NEH competition. 

PHASE II: FINAL PROPOSALS DUE TO NEH
NEH DEADLINE: SEPTEMBER 18, 2024

Tenured or tenure-track faculty of institutions of higher education must be nominated by their institution. The Center for the Humanities at UNH administers that nomination process. You may not submit directly to NEH without first submitting a UNH preliminary proposal in August.  Please see Phase I instructions above.  UNH's Research Development office will assist UNH nominees with the NEH and grants.gov final application process: NEH Summer Stipend Guidelines.

* GUIDELINES FOR PRELIMINARY PROPOSALS
 

UNH Cover Sheet – Please include the following information:
- Applicant Name
- Applicant Department
- Project Field of Study
- Address (either home or work)
- Brief Summary of Project (150 words maximum)
- List of any applications you have submitted for external support in calendar years 2023 and 2024, indicating a) the funding agency, b) the amount of award applied for, c) the project title, and d) whether the grant application was successful or not.

To complete the rest of your UNH proposal, please include the application components in the table titled GUIDANCE FOR NARRATIVE, WORKPLAN, BIBLIOGRAPHY, RESUME, and APPENDICES on p. 10 of the guidelines.

Project Narrative – Must not exceed three single-spaced pages.  Please use NEH headings and see guidelines for what to include in each section:

• Significance and contribution
• Organization and methods
• Competencies, skills, and access
• Final product and dissemination

Project Workplan -- Not to exceed one page

Project Bibliography -- Must not exceed one single-spaced page.

Résumé/Curriculum Vita -- Must not exceed two single-spaced pages.

Appendices -- OPTIONAL

•  editions or translations: provide a sample of the original text (one page) and the edited or translated version (one page)
• database projects: provide a sample entry (one page)
• visual materials: provide a sample (one page)

Reference Letters - Not required for preliminary applications. However, please be prepared to supply two letters of reference to NEH by their September deadline.  If selected as one of UNH's nominees, you will be asked by NEH to provide the email addresses of your referees, and NEH will contact them. Reference letters should provide important information about you and your project. Referees should discuss the project's significance to the field, the intended audience, the likely outcome, the general quality of your work, and your ability to carry out the project successfully. Ideally, no more than one referee should be from your home institution. There is no length restriction.

Please note that our guidelines and headings were updated in 2022 to align the preliminary UNH application with the new NEH application.  

PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR PRELIMINARY APPLICATION (AS ONE DOC OR PDF FILE) VIA EMAIL TO HUMANITIES.CENTER@UNH.EDU.

CALL 862-4356 IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS PRELIMINARY PROPOSAL PROCESS.

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.  

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.

Application Deadline

Monday, September 30, 2024.  (Please share application materials with the Dean's Office by September 23 to ensure enough time for Dean Dillon to compose the required letter of endorsement.  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 faculty from any UNH department or program so long as their research falls within the humanities and they have the support of their department chair and dean. 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.  Faculty 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.

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 30, 2024 (to dean's office for endorsement by September 23)

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 – For priority consideration, 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 sent directly to the Center for the Humanities. (See below.) At least one of the letters must come from recommenders 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 awards grants of up to $3,000 in support of expenses related to research and other humanities endeavors including: public programs, visiting speakers, curriculum development, and interdisciplinary conferences. Our intention is to be as flexible as possible in support of an excellent and creative program, project, or conference in the humanities.  These awards can also support interdisciplinary conferences hosted at UNH.

If the end date will be later than June 30 of the year in which you receive your award, please note this, with justification, in your timeline. If you encounter an unanticipated need to extend your work beyond June 30, you must write to the Center with a new budget and timeline, as well as an explanation for the change. Center approval is required to approve payouts past the cut-off.

In the past, such grants have supported travel for research purposes, the acquisition of special research materials, library collection development, visiting speakers, public programs, the purchase of research equipment, technical assistance, conferences, public programs, and other expenses associated with faculty projects in the humanities. The grants might also provide support for interdisciplinary undertakings such as faculty seminars and colloquia. They can provide seed money for projects, particularly those leading to major proposals to outside funding agencies. They can contribute to ongoing projects such as summer institutes for schoolteachers. In sum, Programs, Projects, and Interdisciplinary Conferences Grants are intended to be responsive to the needs and goals of the faculty.  

All UNH faculty are eligible to apply, so long as the project falls within the humanities. 

Proposal Deadline

September 30, 2024

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?
  • 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?
  • Who are the key presenters, and are they tentatively committed to participate?
  • 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.

Requests to support various endeavors in the humanities can be made at any time and are considered on a case-by-case basis, but please note that (as of July 2024) we are currently in the process of finalizing our FY25 budget and cannot yet commit specific amounts. We can, however, consider whether your request will be eligible and can confirm an amount once we know what we have to allocate across the coming FY.

Discretionary grants 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, providing a succinct description of the project including a budget. If your proposal considers any aspect of race, ethnicity, migration, or identity formation, please note in your email that it aligns with our new public humanities initiative.

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 fund/org numbers to use.

Most purchases (like supplies or vendor payments) should be processed in Ushop. You may sometimes use a Pcard for incidental expenses and submit receipts via the PRA system.

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. Completed forms should be forwarded to the Center for approval and signature.

An honorarium may be offered to express appreciation to an outside scholar for their time, expertise, and engagement with the campus community, though it may not be negotiated ahead of time. As above, note the need for the relevant tax forms and note that international participants may need to do additional/different forms and honor different tax requirements. Completed honorarium request forms, signed by the sponsoring faculty or staff member, should be forwarded to Center for approval and then submitted via Ushop.

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.

If you are hiring someone to provide services, 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 additional 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.

We will not be making any new awards in 2022.  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

The Center solicits applications for Hayes Fellows to receive funding for projects aligned with the mission of the Hayes Chair. 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.” The fellowship funding must be used 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.

Fellows will receive $5,000 in direct research support, with an additional $5,000 ($10,000 total) available to fellows with publicly engaged projects with external community partners. 

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.

The Center is particularly interested in Hayes Fellowship proposals that 1) address issues of race, ethnicity, migration, and identity formation within the state and, in so doing, directly advance COLA’s and UNH’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Strategic Initiatives (see especially #5: “Our research will include issues of racism, diversity, and inclusion”) and 2) that document pieces of the state’s history and current events to raise consciousness about diversity in New Hampshire (particularly in ways not already familiar to the broader public).  

We strongly encourage potential Hayes Fellows to seek commitments for partnering directly with New Hampshire communities (or institutions or individuals within such communities, broadly defined to include communities of race and ethnicity, but also of language, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, and the like) 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. In recognition of the fact that collaborative projects will be more complex in their needs and will likely include compensation for community partners’ time and effort or travel, publicly engaged projects will be eligible to apply for up to $10,000. 

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), Black New England Conference (BNEC), 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 project) and, in the latter case, which resources will flow to community partners or external 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 intended 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.
• address issues of race, ethnicity, migration, and identity formation within the state and /or raise consciousness about diversity in New Hampshire.
• involve students in their work and showcase their contributions.

Timeline

Final Application Deadline: Friday, October 11, 2024.
Please send all final application materials to HUMANITIES.CENTER@UNH.EDU.

Draft Application Deadline: September 13, 2024.
If you would like to receive feedback on a draft, please submit it by September 13 to humanities.center@unh.edu. We will return it to you within two weeks with comments and suggestions for strengthening your proposal and any requests for clarification before final submission.

In addition, we will be holding walk-in appointments (which can also be conducted online) on September 6 and 10. These sessions can be used to discuss ideas and plans, ask questions, clarify budgets, or otherwise support the development of your final project and proposal. You are welcome to take advantage of both the walk-in hours and the draft review but need not do one to do the other and can forego both and still submit a proposal in October. The extra layers of support and feedback are offered on an as-needed, as-wanted basis.

The Center for the Humanities is pleased to announce a major new public humanities initiative in Race, Ethnicity, Migration and Identity. REMI will support and disseminate humanities research that partners UNH faculty members, staff and students with communities to launch and sustain innovative and deeply collaborative projects examining race, ethnicity, migration and identity formation, with the goal of creating traditional scholarship, digital collections of artifacts, public history/storytelling archives, and other products to document various pieces of history and current events. The work of faculty and students must be situated in direct partnerships with communities and organizations and will constitute not only research conducted about or disseminated to the public, but research performed in conjunction with elements of the public. As well as proposing and developing curriculum around their collaborative research, faculty are strongly encouraged to involve students directly in their work and to showcase their contributions in the Undergraduate Research Conference (URC) or other appropriate venues.

Small discretionary grants and Programs and Projects funding will be available to those interested in exploring the creation of a REMI project and may be applied for at any time, following the discretionary grant guidelines and noting that this is a REMI project. The Center will provide other support and training for work in public and digital humanities and welcomes suggestions for skills or practitioners to include, including via the submission of Sidore Master Class proposals, when those criteria are met.

Those with more developed ideas or existing community partnerships based in New Hampshire are encouraged to consider applying for one of our new Hayes Fellowships, which will provide substantially more material support.  To determine if your REMI project is eligible for Hayes funding, see Hayes Fellowship guidelines here.