NEH Summer Stipends 2024 Competition - Call for Proposals

National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)
Summer Stipends Program Page | NEH Summer Stipend Guidelines

Preliminary Proposal Deadline: Friday, August 9th at 5 p.m.

About Summer Stipends:
NEH Summer Stipends program aims to stimulate new research and publication in the humanities. The program accomplishes these goals by providing small awards to individuals pursuing research that is of value to humanities scholars, general audiences, or both; supporting projects at any stage of development, but especially early-stage research and late-stage writing in which small awards are most effective; and funding a wide range of individuals, including independent scholars, community college faculty, and non-teaching staff at universities. Eligible projects usually result in articles, books, digital resources and publications, archaeological reports, critical editions, translations (with annotations or critical apparatus), and other scholarly resources, or research intended to be disseminated in one or more of those formats.

Significant Changes to the 2024 Competition:

• Institutions may now only nominate one faculty member each deadline. Tenured and tenure-track applicants with a college affiliation must be nominated by their institutions. Non-tenure-track faculty may apply without a nomination.
• Individuals who have previously held an NEH award in any of its programs for individuals are not eligible to apply.
• The stipend amount has increased to $8,000.

To Apply:
Submit an internal application (via email to Mercedes Susi, senior associate director of sponsored programs & faculty fellowships, at susim@union.edu) by 5:00 p.m. Friday, August 9th. The review process will be chaired by Dean Kara Doyle. The selected nominee will have the opportunity to revise their proposal materials between the outcome of the internal competition and the NEH deadline. Applicants may reach out to Mercedes in advance of the internal deadline for initial feedback on their narratives.

Please submit of the following items for consideration:

• Abbreviated Narrative (max. 2 pages). Please include the following:
  • Significance and contribution: Describe the intellectual significance of your proposed project, including its value to humanities scholars, general audiences, or both. State the project’s thesis or claim and provide an overview, explaining the basic ideas, problems, or questions examined by the study. Explain how the project will complement, challenge, or expand relevant studies in the field.
  • Organization and methods: Describe your method(s) and clarify the part or stage of the project that will be supported by the Summer Stipend. For a dissertation revision, state that your project is to revise a dissertation. Explain how you plan to move beyond the original dissertation, and how the new project will benefit from the addition. For book projects, explain how the final project will be organized. If possible, provide a brief chapter outline. For article projects, provide an overview of the article, including details about the argument, sources, and word count. For digital projects, describe the technologies that will be used and developed, and explain how the scholarship will be presented to benefit audiences in the humanities. For edition or translation projects, describe the annotations or other scholarly apparatus that you plan to include. If you are proposing to translate into English a work for which other English translations already exist, provide a rationale for the new translation.
• Work plan (max. 1 page). This attachment should:
  • Summarize your work plan, describing the part or stage of the project that will be supported by the Summer Stipend and the activities or steps that you will use during the period of performance to carry it out. Use a timeline that includes each activity. Your work plan must be based on a full-time commitment to the project for two consecutive months; part-time work is not allowed. If you do not anticipate finishing the entire project during the period of performance, discuss your plan for doing so. NEH understands that your work plan may change as your project develops, but it should not depend heavily on factors beyond your control, such as the receipt of outside reviewers’ reports from a publisher. If you plan to submit a manuscript for publication before the end of the period of performance, explain what additional work will be required and why it merits support. If you and another researcher are seeking funds for the same project, identify the researcher and state if they have submitted a proposal or received NEH support. Clearly explain how the work will be divided and the extent to which each collaborator’s contribution depends on that of the other.
• Résumé (max. 2 pages) saved as a PDF. Please include the following sections:
  • Current and past positions
  • Education: list degrees, dates awarded, and titles of theses or dissertations
  • Awards and honors: include dates. If you have received prior support from NEH, indicate the dates of these awards and the products that resulted from them
  • Publications: include full citations for publications and presentations
  • Other relevant professional activities and accomplishments
  • Level of competence in any relevant foreign languages

All materials should have one-inch margins, a font size no smaller than 11 pts., and single-spacing.

Please note, materials required at the internal application stage vary from those required for the external NEH contest. Content requirements for full proposals to NEH can be found in the Summer Stipend guidelines.

Internal Competition & Program Timeline:

• July 10, 2024 – NEH webinar for nominators and prospective applicants from 2:00-3:00 p.m. ET. Registration is required to attend the webinar.
• August 9, 2024 – Internal applications are due to Mercedes Susi by 5:00 p.m. ET.
• August 20, 2024 – Internal applicants will be notified of status by end of day
• August 21, 2024 – NEH webinar for applicants from 2:00-3:00 p.m. ET. Registration is required to attend the webinar.
• Sept. 18, 2024 – NEH deadline for applications.
• April 30, 2025 – Expected notification date.

Additional information, including application guidelines, sample narratives from successful applications, and program statistics, can be found on the Summer Stipends program page: https://www.neh.gov/grants/research/summer-stipends

Questions? Please contact Mercedes Susi (susim@union.edu or ext. 6984).