Major Grant and Fellowship Timelines

• Proposal (no more than five pages, double spaced, in Arial or Helvetica 11-point font, inclusive of any footnotes or endnotes).
• Up to two additional pages of images, musical scores, or other similar supporting non-text materials (optional)
• Work plan (no more than one page, in double-spaced text or in a timeline/chart format, in Arial or Helvetica 11-point font). The work plan should clearly outline the work to be undertaken over the course of the fellowship term and demonstrate how this work fits into the overall trajectory of the project. Ideally, the work plan will give peer reviewers a sense of which aspects of the proposed work the applicant will be doing when, and where.
• Bibliography (without annotation, no more than two pages, in Arial or Helvetica 11-point font)
• Publications list (no more than two pages, in Arial or Helvetica 11-point font)
• A brief personal statement of up to one page (double spaced, in Arial or Helvetica 11-point font) describing your intellectual trajectory as a scholar
• A brief writing sample (no more than five pages total, single spaced, including any footnotes or endnotes, in Arial or Helvetica 11-point font), including a brief description of context and the sample’s relation to the proposed project

For instructions on completing Part 1 and Part 2, including the application questions, and a link to the NEA Applicant Portal for Part 2, select the artistic discipline that most closely corresponds with your proposed project activities. Instructions and requirements vary between disciplines.

If you are unsure which discipline is the right choice, review the Artistic Disciplines descriptions, or contact our staff.

Artist Communities | Arts Education | Dance | Design

Folk & Traditional Arts | Literary Arts | Local Arts Agencies

Media Arts | Museums | Music | Musical Theater | Opera

Presenting & Multidisciplinary Works | Theater | Visual Arts

The narrative provides a comprehensive framework and description of the proposed project. It should be succinct, well organized, and free of technical terms and jargon so that peer reviewers can understand the proposed project.

You must limit the narrative to three single-spaced pages with one-inch margins and a font size no smaller than eleven points. Images, charts, diagrams, footnotes, and endnotes are allowed if they fit within the three-page limit.

Name the file narrative.pdf.

NEH has aligned each section of the narrative with corresponding review criteria. In accordance with Review Criterion 4, the entire narrative and writing sample will be evaluated for clarity of expression.

Successful applications will contain the information below. Use the following section headings for the narrative.

Significance and contribution

Describe the significance and appeal of the proposed project for general audiences. Explain why your topic matters, and why it will be of interest to general readers. Summarize the project, explaining its scope and the basic ideas, problems, arguments, questions, texts, people, and/or events that it will explore. Discuss how it relates to previous work on the topic and how your work makes a new contribution.

Sources and organization

Discuss your sources and research materials. Explain how you will use appropriate primary and/or secondary sources, including such things as historical or contemporary documents or other writings, artifacts or objects, literary or artistic or cinematic or visual works, print or digital publications or other digital resources, interviews, observation (including participant observation), the administration of surveys or questionnaires, or other fieldwork. Explain how you will locate or select your sources and how they will support your treatment of the topic. Explain how you plan to organize your book. Provide a chapter outline, with brief explanations of each chapter’s contents.

Competencies, skills, and access

Explain your competence in the area of your project and describe your experience in conveying scholarship to, or otherwise writing for, a broad audience. If the subject is new to you, explain your reasons for working in it and your qualifications to do so. Specify your level of competence in any language or skills needed for the study. If relevant, specify the arrangements for access to archives, collections, or institutions that contain the resources you need, or for interviews with relevant people. If you are proposing work with a collaborator, indicate that person’s competencies. If you are proposing a biography of a living person, discuss the degree of cooperation you have from that person and how this affects your project.

Final product and dissemination

Describe your final product(s) and the audience(s) you aim to reach. Discuss why your treatment is appropriate to the subject matter and audience.

Indicate when you expect to submit the project for publication and when you expect the book to appear. If you have a publisher, describe your plans to disseminate and market the book, explaining how you will reach general readers. If you do not have a publisher, describe your plans to secure one. If you propose creating supplemental digital materials, discuss their technical specifications and explain how you will support and maintain them beyond the period of performance.

Explain how you will handle the documentation of sources, and what form you expect the documentation to take. Briefly discuss how you will balance readability against the need for thoroughness and precision in your documentation of sources.

If the project involves publishing materials that are under copyright, indicate your plans for securing the necessary permission.

Compose a comprehensive description of your proposed project. Your narrative should be succinct, well organized, and free of technical terms and jargon so that peer reviewers can understand the proposed project.

You must limit the narrative to eleven single-spaced pages. Do not include a cover page, an executive summary, or a table of contents. You may include images, charts, diagrams, footnotes, and endnotes if they fit within the page limit. NEH encourages you to number the pages.

Organize your narrative using the following section headings. Each section aligns with one or more of the review criteria NEH will use to evaluate your proposal.

Project overview (about one paragraph)

In the first sentence, state the application’s funding category:

• Planning International Collaboration
• Convening
• Manuscript Preparation
• Scholarly Digital Projects

Provide a concise statement about your project written for a non-specialist audience. Describe the expected final outcome(s) of the project. Include a prospective completion date (this may be beyond the end date of the period of performance).

Significance and impact (about one page)

Summarize your project’s significance for the humanities, broadly understood. Connect it to larger topics in the humanities beyond your specific field’s concerns. Situate your project in the context of existing humanities discourse to highlight its contribution. Describe the anticipated impact of your project’s proposed outcome(s) on the intended audience and on future scholarship.

Substance and context (about two pages)

Describe your project and its value to specific fields. Articulate your major research questions and the particular contributions the project will make to enhance knowledge and understanding in one or more areas of the humanities. Describe the scope of the research and the source materials. Discuss the relationship of the new research to ongoing work in the field by identifying related projects and relevant scholarship.

Methods and execution (about two pages)

Describe your project’s theoretical framework and research design and explain why a collaborative approach is the best way to fulfill its goals. Discuss your rationale for choosing particular methods and how those methods address your research questions.

In addition, each category has specific requirements:

• Planning International Collaboration applications: Describe how you will develop the collaborative project and its final outcome(s). Relate the methods to the proposed activities. Explain the choice of U.S. and international collaborators. If you propose in-person meetings, such as exploratory workshops or other working groups, justify why in-person, as opposed to virtual, meetings are necessary. Describe how you will conduct these meetings and what they will achieve. Explain the goals of any proposed travel.
• Convening applications: Describe the convening event and explain why that particular format (conference, symposium, seminar, or working group; in-person, virtual, or hybrid) best serves the project’s goals. Explain how the event will lead to a tangible outcome such as a future print publication or digital project. Describe the venue and the expected participants. Discuss how you selected presenters and other participants, indicating how many have confirmed their participation. If you propose working groups of collaborators alone, explain why this is necessary. Describe the design of the convening and summarize the themes of sessions or the topics of groups of papers. Where appropriate, describe additional sponsorship, participant logistics, and advertising. Include the URL for the convening’s website, if available. Provide a list of any invited speakers and participants, their paper titles or roles, and their confirmation status with the draft agenda of the convening in Attachment 6: Additional Materials.

• Manuscript Preparation applications: Describe how collaboration will take place and the division of labor to produce the planned manuscript. Discuss remaining research you will undertake and associated travel. Explain why print publication is the best way to communicate the project’s results. Describe negotiations with prospective publishers and whether you have made a formal agreement. Provide a detailed chapter outline to convey the content of the planned manuscript and its arguments or other findings in relation to the research questions. If the project involves materials under copyright, indicate your plans to secure the necessary permission to publish.

• Scholarly Digital Projects applications: Describe how collaboration will take place and the division of labor that will produce the planned digital publication or project. Discuss remaining research you will undertake and associated travel. Justify why digital methods and a digital format are the best way to communicate the project’s results. Describe the organization and the contents of the digital publication or project, including detail about the project’s interpretive components. Discuss the technology you will employ, keeping in mind that NEH views the use of open-source software as a key component in the broad distribution of exemplary digital scholarship in the humanities. If you will not employ generally accessible open-source software, explain why. Where appropriate, provide information on pertinent technical standards and the use of best practices, such as Text Encoding Initiative (TEI)-conformant markup, data management, and digital preservation infrastructure and policies. Where applicable, identify institutional partners who will act as digital publishers or participate in building the digital project. If the project involves materials under copyright, indicate your plans to secure the necessary permissions. Provide a URL if available. Provide a site map, wireframe, or annotated screenshots in Attachment 6: Additional Materials.

History of the project and its productivity (about one page)

Explain how the project began and its progress to date. Describe planning or research you have already completed. For new projects, explain the motivations for seeking the collaboration.

Indicate major products to date—in print or digital form.

If you have previously received NEH funding for any phase of the proposed research project, discuss how the previously funded project met, or did not meet, its goals according to its original or amended work plan.

If you are requesting support for a component of a larger project, briefly describe the overall design of the whole project and clearly delineate the specific part intended for NEH funding through this application. See Related funding opportunities.

If work on the project will continue after the proposed period of performance, describe the remaining work and probable sources of financial support. For long-term projects, provide a provisional plan for overall completion, including milestones with dates.

Collaboration (about two pages)

Summarize the specific qualifications and responsibilities of the project team members named in Attachment 1: Project team. Describe their contributions to the project and estimate how much time they will spend on it—for example, part-time during the academic year and full-time during the summer (see Budget Justification). Explain the benefits of bringing together these particular collaborators (and, for Convening projects, any additional participants). Describe aspects of project design that will maximize that collaborative potential. If applicable, describe your plans for consultation or collaboration with tribal or other communities. For project team members providing technical support, scientific or conservation work, or laboratory analysis, explain how their activities are important for achieving the project’s goals.

Work plan (about one page)

Summarize, rather than duplicate, the detailed work plan you will provide in Attachment 3. Provide an overview of what you will accomplish during the grant period, identifying major phases and milestones. Discuss how you will use NEH funds to advance these goals. Describe a set of activities for each phase and specify the project team members involved. For multi-institutional collaborative projects, discuss the distribution of responsibilities across each institution.

Final product and dissemination (about one or two pages)

Address the requirements of the appropriate category:

• Planning International Collaboration applications: Describe how you will disseminate the expected results of the initial collaboration, workshops, or other working group meetings beyond the project team members (for example, public presentations, white papers, blog posts, etc.). Provide a plan to assess the project’s feasibility. Describe the next steps to be taken, possible sources of future funding, and the anticipated outcome(s) of the project.

• Convening applications: Describe how you will disseminate the initial results of the convening (for example, via livestreamed or recorded video of the convening, web-posted papers, podcasts, blogs, or discussion boards). Identify future publication and dissemination goals and timelines, even those beyond the period of performance. Provide any available information about a future publication, including the likely publisher. You may include pertinent correspondence with publishers in Attachment 6. Additional Materials. If the future product will be a digital project rather than a print publication, briefly describe the likely project, the next steps to be taken, and the envisioned timeline.

• Manuscript Preparation applications: Describe how you will disseminate the results of the project. Discuss plans for publication, peer-review, and publicity, as well as estimated prices. You may include pertinent correspondence with publishers in Attachment 6. Additional Materials.

• Scholarly Digital Projects applications: Discuss how you will disseminate the digital publication or scholarly resource, including plans for enhancing its discoverability and accessibility. Describe what will be available digitally to users by the end of the period of performance. If applicable, provide projected usage statistics or subscription figures. NEH expects that you will maintain any materials produced in digital form to ensure their long-term availability. To that end, describe how you will maintain and support the project’s digital results beyond the period of performance. Describe the digital publisher or hosting institution’s ability to ensure sustained access to the project and its commitment to doing so. Describe how you will sustain the project financially.

Narrative

Compose a comprehensive description of your proposed project. Your narrative should be succinct, well organized, and free of technical terms and jargon so that peer reviewers from a range of disciplinary backgrounds can understand the proposed project.

Do not include a cover sheet or table of contents. You may include images, charts, diagrams, footnotes, and endnotes if they fit within the mandatory page limit.

• For Level I proposals, the narrative must not exceed four (4) pages.
• For Level II proposals, the narrative must not exceed six (6) pages.
• For Level III proposals, the narrative must not exceed eight (8) pages.

Include all required and relevant details within the narrative. You may embed links to external sources, but NEH does not require peer reviewers to review proposals online or visit links.

Organize your narrative using the following section headings. Each section aligns with one or more review criteria NEH will use to evaluate your proposal.

Overview of the project (one paragraph)

State if you are applying for Level I, Level II, or Level III funding and describe how your project addresses one or more of the DHAG program priority areas outlined in A1. Purpose. Provide a concise overview of your project written for a non-specialist audience. State the main goal of your project, key activities that will take place during the period of performance, intended audiences, and expected outputs. Note that this section can be identical to the “Description of project” field in Grants.gov. The Grants.gov “Description of project” field has a limit of 1000 characters, including spaces.

Enhancing the humanities

Provide a compelling argument for how your project benefits one or more disciplines in the humanities. Explain how the proposed activities and the anticipated results address a need or challenge for specific audiences (e.g., humanities scholars, students, practitioners, and/or public audiences). Discuss the potential impact of the project’s outcomes.

For projects that are developing experimental methods, techniques, or tools, identify the technologies, platforms, and standards that you plan to use and how those choices are shaped by and contribute to needs in the humanities.

NEH views the use of open-source software as a key component in the broad distribution of exemplary digital scholarship in the humanities. If you will not employ generally accessible open-source software, explain why, and explain how the project will satisfy NEH’s goal for scholars, educators, students, and the American public to have ready and easy access to the wide range of NEH award products. See Providing access to NEH-funded projects.

Environmental scan

Demonstrate that you are aware of past work and work in progress across the digital humanities and explain how your proposed project contributes to and advances existing work in the field.

Provide a concise summary of relevant work within your area of study, including work that is technically or methodologically similar, and its relationship to your proposed project. For example, if you will develop software to solve a particular humanities problem, discuss existing software that addresses similar questions in other content areas outside of your field of expertise, and explain how your solution differs. If existing software products could be adapted for the proposed project, identify them and discuss the pros and cons of taking that approach. If relevant, describe existing humanities projects similar to yours and discuss how they relate to your project.

This section should not provide new information about proposed project activities.

History of the project

Provide a concise history of the project, including a summary of preliminary research, planning, and previous related work, including publications. You should also discuss prior financial support and available resources and research facilities.

If you are seeking funding to revitalize, recover, or sustain an older project, briefly describe how — if at all — the project is currently being maintained (for example, through institutional support or grant funding). Document its user community, usage, and/or/web statistics, and describe the project’s impact on the field.

If you are seeking a Level III award, describe the results of testing and evaluation from earlier stages and document how many users or visitors your current project has. Explain how earlier activities have positioned the project for successful execution and how continued growth will impact users beyond the applicant institution.

Provide references to any earlier work, with citations or by including a list of references with URLs in Attachment 7: Appendices.

If you are requesting support for part of a larger initiative, clearly delineate the specific part intended for DHAG funding through this application.

Activities and project team

Summarize the primary activities you will accomplish during the period of performance, indicating which personnel are responsible for which activities. This summary should complement the information in the work plan and timeline in Attachment 3: Work plan and personnel biographies in Attachment 4: Biographies. Describe how the project will support and benefit all project staff, including students and contingent faculty, through project-based learning, mentoring, immersion in the activities of the institution, or other professional development opportunities. Describe how you will measure success and impact. Evaluation plans may involve people from outside your project team, or members from an advisory board who represent your intended audience. For example, a software development project might schedule user testing at regular intervals using internal staff, while another project focused on digital public humanities might consult regularly with a specific community outside of the applicant’s institution. Evaluation activities should measure how the project is addressing its broader goals as defined in the “Enhancing the humanities” section. (For more information on evaluating humanities projects, see the Rhode Island Council on the Humanities Evaluation Toolkit.) If your project involves staging a workshop or conference, include a draft agenda and a list of proposed participants or specific criteria for selecting participants in Attachment 7: Appendices.

Final products and dissemination

Describe the expected final products for this award. Discuss how they align with the project’s goals and how you will ensure they reach and impact your intended audiences. Explain how you will credit the project team and collaborators for their contributions. Detail your plans to disseminate project results to your intended audience (e.g., printed articles or books, presentations at meetings, webinars or training sessions, electronic media, and/or public events). Discuss plans for ensuring that tools, software, platforms, or other grant products will be disseminated beyond the applicant institution. Explain how you will make resulting publications available in an open-access venue.

Briefly describe how you will ensure that project results will be accessible to individuals with functional differences. Identify the guidelines or standards you will adhere to with respect to accessibility and universal design, as well as the disabilities your steps will address (for example, cognitive or physical disabilities, impaired sight, or impaired hearing). See H. Other Information for resources for designing for accessibility.

If applicable, describe any planned activities that will take place beyond the period of performance.

If you propose software development, describe how it will address NEH’s encouragement that software be free for others to use, copy, distribute, and modify. Describe plans to make open-source software or source code available to the public. Explain your plans to document software to promote its reuse and implementation.

Compose a comprehensive description of your proposed project. Your narrative should be succinct, well organized, and free of technical terms and jargon so that peer reviewers can understand the proposed project.

Your narrative must not exceed three single-spaced pages with one-inch margins and a font size no smaller than eleven points. Images, charts, diagrams, footnotes, and endnotes are allowed, if they fit within the three-page limit. Name the file narrative.pdf.

NEH has aligned each section with a primary corresponding review criterion, but note that the criteria can be relevant in more than one section and that, taken together, the parts of the narrative should form a coherent whole. Refer to E1. Review Criteria.

Use the following section headings, providing the information indicated.

Name the file narrative.pdf.

Significance and contribution

Describe the intellectual significance of the proposed project, including its value to humanities scholars, general audiences, or both. Provide an overview of the project, explaining the basic ideas, problems, or questions examined by the study. Describe your research and state the project’s thesis or claim(s). Explain how the project will complement, challenge, or expand relevant studies in the field. Discuss how your scholarship will be presented to benefit the intended audiences. If you are applying to translate a work into English, and other English translations already exist, provide a rationale for a new translation. If your project results in a work that will be written in a language other than English, provide a rationale for publishing in that language.

Organization, concepts, and methods

Explain how your proposed research will help you resolve the problems or questions you are examining. Describe the theoretical framework of your argument and explain how your proposed research will advance it. Explain your concepts and your terminology. Describe and discuss your method(s) and sources.

For books, if possible, provide a chapter outline with brief explanations of each chapter’s arguments. For other publications, explain how your final product will be organized.

For digital projects, in addition to explaining your project’s organization, describe the technologies that will be used and developed, and explain how the scholarship will be presented to benefit audiences in the humanities.

For editions and translations, describe the project’s scholarly apparatus (e.g., introduction, annotations, and paratextual material).

For dissertation revisions, state that your project is to revise a dissertation. You must explain how your project moves beyond the original dissertation, and how it will benefit from the additional research, materials, or chapter(s).

Competencies, skills, and access (aligns primarily with review criterion 4)

Explain your competence or background in the area of your project. If the area of inquiry is new to you, explain your reasons for working in it and your qualifications to do so. Specify the level of competence in any language or digital technology needed for the study. Describe where the study will be conducted and what research materials will be used. If relevant, specify the arrangements for access to archives, collections, or institutions that contain the necessary resources.

Final product and dissemination (aligns primarily with review criterion 5)

Describe the intended results of the project. Explain how the results will be disseminated and why these means are appropriate to the subject matter and audience. If the project has a website, provide the URL. If the final product will appear in a language other than English, explain how access and dissemination will be affected. NEH expects that any materials produced in digital form as a result of its awards will be maintained so as to ensure their long-term availability. To that end, describe how the project’s digital results, if any, will be sustained and supported beyond the period of performance. If the project involves materials under copyright, indicate your plans for securing the necessary permission to publish.