National Endowment For the Humanities (NEH) Announces $22.6 Million For 219 Humanities Projects Nationwide
From NEH:
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) today announced $22.6 million in grants for 219 humanities projects across the country. Among these are grants that will establish protocols for the stewardship and voluntary return of unethically acquired archaeological and ethnographic artifacts to their communities of origin; enrich K–12 educators’ understanding and teaching of the American Revolution through workshops at lesser-known historic sites around Boston; and produce an immersive virtual replica of the former Mount Pleasant Industrial Indian Boarding School, a boarding school established in Michigan by the U.S. government in 1893 to forcibly assimilate Native American children.
[Clip]
Grants awarded today also make significant investments in the fields of conservation science research and training to help find better ways to preserve materials and collections of critical importance to the nation’s cultural heritage. New funding will create a program at the University of North Florida to prepare undergraduates for careers in collections care through hands-on training at local Florida historical organizations and help undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Arizona learn best practices for archival management and analysis specific to heritage collections from the American Southwest. It will also support new training programs at Rochester Institute of Technology for scholars and library, archive, and museum professionals in using multispectral imaging to uncover hidden elements and information about cultural heritage materials.
[Clip]
Several projects apply new technologies and digital methods to innovative humanities public programs and research, such as development of an immersive virtual reality (VR) game that explores the history of ancient Peru and teaches users about the archaeological methods that shed light on ancient Andean culture. Other grants will allow Shakespeare scholars and developers at the University of Idaho to create a free web-based tool for use in high school and college classrooms that will gather, preserve, and publish important dramaturgical information such as script annotations, interpretive essays, and glossaries. And they will support work by researchers at Wichita State University on a digital application to convert multimodal texts that include images and graphics into fully accessible versions for blind and low-vision users.
[Clip]
Grants were awarded in the following categories:
- Awards for Faculty
- Support advanced research in the humanities by scholars, teachers, and staff at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic-Serving Institutions, and Tribal Colleges and Universities
- 28 grants, totaling $1.5 million
- Cultural and Community Resilience Grants
- Support community-based efforts to mitigate climate change and COVID-19 pandemic impacts, safeguard cultural resources, and foster cultural resilience through identifying, documenting, or collecting cultural heritage and community experience
- 17 grants, totaling $2.5 million
- Digital Humanities Advancement Grants
- Support the implementation of innovative digital humanities projects that have successfully completed a start-up phase and demonstrated their value to the field. Digital Humanities Advancement Grants receive partial funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)
- 13 grants, totaling $2.6 million
- Digital Projects for the Public Grants
- Support projects such as websites, mobile applications, games, and virtual environments that significantly contribute to the public’s engagement with humanities ideas
- 11 grants, totaling $1.9 million
- Fellowships
- Support advanced research in the humanities by college and university teachers and independent scholars
- 78 grants, totaling $4.4 million
- NEH-JUSFC Fellowships for Advanced Social Science Research on Japan
- A joint activity of the Japan–United States Friendship Commission (JUSFC) and NEH. Awards support research on modern Japanese society and political economy, Japan’s international relations, and U.S.–Japan relations
- 3 grants, totaling $180,000
- Humanities Initiatives Grants
- Strengthen the teaching and study of the humanities in higher education through the development or enhancement of humanities programs, courses, and resources. Grant programs are offered for colleges and universities, community colleges, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic-Serving Institutions, and Tribal Colleges and Universities
- 26 grants, totaling $3.8 million
- Landmarks of American History and Culture
- Support workshops for K–12 educators that enhance and strengthen humanities teaching, focused on using particular places or communities to understand American history and culture
- 1 grant, totaling $189,708
- Preservation and Access Research and Development Grants
- Support projects that address major challenges in preserving or providing access to humanities collections and resources
- 6 grants, totaling $1.6 million
- Preservation and Access Education and Training Grants
- Help the staff of cultural institutions obtain the knowledge and skills needed to serve as effective stewards of humanities collections. Grants also support educational programs that prepare the next generation of conservators and preservation professionals, as well as projects that introduce the staff of cultural institutions to recent improvements in preservation and access practices
- 8 grants, totaling $2.8 million
- Public Impact Projects at Smaller Organizations Grants
- Supports America’s small and mid-sized cultural organizations, especially those from underserved communities, in enhancing their interpretive strategies and strengthening their public humanities programming
- 27 grants, totaling $662,297
Learn More, Read the Complete Overview
Direct to Info about Each Grant (by State)
Filed under: Associations and Organizations, Awards, Funding, Jobs, Libraries, Management and Leadership, News, Patrons and Users, Preservation

About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.