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External Funding Opportunities

Resources for Writing Successful Proposals:

On the Art of Writing Proposals - Social Science Research Council

Writing Proposals for ACLS Fellowship Competitions

Below is a list of links to websites offering funding for projects in the humanities. Please contact the Baker-Nord Center (bakernord@case.edu) if you identify any expired links or have suggestions for additions, corrections, or updates.

National Endowment for the Humanities

NEH is an independent grant-making agency of the United States government dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities.

Listing of Past CWRU NEH Grant Recipients

Other Major Funding Agencies

  • Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
: Provides opportunities for foreign scholars to conduct research and relative activities in Germany. Offers fellowships and grants.
  • American Academy in Berlin: Since the American Academy in Berlin opened its doors, in September 1998, its fellows have been the central focus of its activities. They come from across the intellectual and cultural spectrum — history, economics, philosophy, literary studies, sociology — and from the worlds of public policy, the visual arts, poetry, music composition, law, and journalism.
  • American Association of University Women: One of the world’s largest sources of funding exclusively for graduate women, the AAUW Educational Foundation supports aspiring scholars around the globe, teachers and activists in local communities, women at critical stages of their careers, and those pursuing professions where women are underrepresented.
  • American Council of Learned Societies: ACLS offers fellowships and grants in more than a dozen programs for research in the humanities and related social sciences at the doctoral and postdoctoral levels.
  • American Philosophical Society: The APS promotes useful knowledge in the sciences and humanities through excellence in scholarly research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, community outreach, and its grants programs.
  • The Andrew Carnegie Fellows Program: Social sciences and humanities research are the beneficiaries of a new $6.4 million fellowship program created by Carnegie Corporation of New York. In 2015, the first year of the program, thirty-two scholars were named to the inaugural class of Andrew Carnegie Fellows, with grants of up to $200,000 each to support research on challenges to democracy and the international order.
  • Cleveland Foundation: A vibrant arts and cultural community has long been one of Cleveland’s greatest assets, and the Cleveland Foundation is committed to supporting and enriching our vast array of arts and cultural organizations, and welcomes grant requests.
  • Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, New York Public Library: An international fellowship program open to people whose work will benefit directly from access to the collections at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building—including academics, independent scholars, and creative writers (novelists, playwrights, poets). The Center appoints 15 Fellows a year for a nine-month term at the Library, from September through May. In addition to working on their own projects, the Fellows engage in an ongoing exchange of ideas within the Center and in public forums throughout the Library
  • Fulbright Scholar Program: The Fulbright Specialist Program (FSP) promotes linkages between U.S. scholars and professionals and their counterparts at hostinstitutions overseas.
  • German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD): The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) is a publicly-funded independent organization of higher education institutions in Germany. Each year DAAD, its Regional Branch Offices, its Information Centers, and DAAD Professors around the globe provide information and financial support to over 120,000 highly-qualified students and faculty for international research and study per year.
  • German Marshall Fund of the United States: Grant opportunities in history, social science and public policy.
  • John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation: The Guggenheim Memorial Foundation provides fellowships for advanced professionals in all fields, except the performing arts.
  • Howard Foundation: The Howard Foundation awards a limited number of fellowships each year for independent projects in selected fields, targeting its support specifically to early mid-career individuals, those who have achieved recognition for at least one major project.
  • Loeb Classical Library Foundation: The Loeb Classical Library Foundation awards fellowships to qualified scholars to support research, publication, and other projects in the area of classical studies, classical archaeology, and the reception of classical antiquity.
  • National Science Foundation: Science, Technology, and Society: The Science, Technology, and Society (STS) program supports research that uses historical, philosophical, and social scientific methods to investigate the intellectual, material, and social facets of the scientific, technological, engineering and mathematical (STEM) disciplines. It encompasses a broad spectrum of STS topics including interdisciplinary studies of ethics, equity, governance, and policy issues that are closely related to STEM disciplines, including medical science.
  • Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Studies:The Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study awards 10-15 faculty fellowships each year to scholars from across the disciplines whose work addresses its annual research theme. Fellows live and work at Notre Dame and typically receive half their salary per academic year (up to $75,000), subsidized housing, a research allowance, and a private office. 
  • Ohio Arts Council: The Ohio Arts Council offers seven different grant funding programs that provide support to artists and make arts activities available to a broad segment of Ohio’s public
  • Ohio Humanities: Ohio Humanities accepts grant applications for projects that have humanities content and utilize humanities professionals.
  • John Templeton Foundation: Each year, the Foundation designs funding opportunities that ask researchers and other project leaders to focus their attention on a group of particularly compelling topics. These Funding Competitions challenge grant-seekers to develop proposals that specifically address one or more of the Big Questions.

Institutes and Humanities Centers with External Funding Opportunities

  • American Academy in Rome: Rome Prize fellowships are designed for emerging artists and for scholars in the early or middle stages of their careers. In the case of scholars, preference will be given to applicants for whom research time in Italy, and especially in the city of Rome, is essential, and who have not had extensive prior experience there.
  • American School of Classical Studies in Athens: Founded in 1881, The American School of Classical Studies provides graduate students and scholars from affiliated North American college and universities a base for the advanced study of all aspects of Greek culture, from antiquity to the present day.
  • Bogliasco Foundation: Each year, the Bogliasco Foundation awards approximately 50 Fellowships in any subject area of the following disciplines: archaeology, architecture, classics, dance, film/video, history, landscape architecture, literature, music, philosophy, theater, visual arts. Bogliasco Fellowships include full room and board, plus the use of a private studio, but no stipend.
  • Dumbarton Oaks: Dumbarton Oaks is a research institute of Harvard University that exists to further and publish research in the three areas of study supported by Robert Woods Bliss and Mildred Barnes Bliss: Byzantine Studies, including related aspects of late Roman, early Christian, western Medieval, Slavic, and Near Eastern Studies; Pre-Columbian Studies of Mexico, Central America, and Andean South America; and Garden and Landscape Studies, including garden history, landscape architecture, and related disciplines. Residential fellowships for an academic year, semester, or summer are awarded in all three areas of study to scholars from around the world.
  • Getty Research Institute: Getty Scholar Grants are for established scholars, or writers who have attained distinction in their fields. Recipients are in residence at the Getty Research Institute, where they pursue their own projects free from academic obligations, make use of Getty collections, join their colleagues in a weekly meeting devoted to an annual theme, and participate in the intellectual life of the Getty.
  • Institute for Advanced Study: The School of Historical Studies supports scholarship in all fields of historical research, but it is concerned principally with the following: Greek and Roman civilizations, Medieval Europe, Modern Europe, The Islamic World, Philosophy and International Relations, History of Art, East Asian Studies.
  • National Humanities Center: The National Humanities Center is the only major independent American institute for advanced study in all fields of the humanities. Privately incorporated and governed by a distinguished board of trustees from academic, professional, and public life, the Center was planned under the auspices of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and began operation in 1978. Outstanding scholars from across the United States and more than thirty other nations have been awarded fellowships for advanced study at the National Humanities Center.
  • The Newberry Library: Long-term fellowships support individual research and promote serious intellectual exchange through active participation in the Newberry’s scholarly activities, including a biweekly fellows’ seminar.
 Short-term fellowships
 provide access to the Newberry’s collection for PhD candidates or postdoctoral scholars.
  • Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University: Fellowships are designed to support scholars, scientists, artists, and writers of exceptional promise and demonstrated accomplishments who wish to pursue work in academic and professional fields and in the creative arts.
  • Stanford Humanities Center: The Humanities Center offers approximately twenty-five residential fellowships for the academic year to Stanford and non-Stanford scholars at different career stages, giving them the opportunity to pursue their work in a supportive intellectual community.
  • University of Strasbourg Institute for Advanced Study: The Institute for Advanced Study of the University of Strasbourg (USIAS) supports original, potentially path-breaking research by means of fellowships, seminars, conferences and visiting grants. Annual calls for fellowship applications for up to 18 months are typically announced in the fall with a January deadline.
  • Villa I Tatti: The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies offers fellowships for research in any aspect of the Renaissance in Italy.

Scholarly Societies in the Humanities Offering Funding for Members