Partnership Opportunity Notification

January 2024

The US National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in 2022 to encourage collaboration between US and UK researchers. The MOU provides for international collaboration opportunities whereby US researchers may receive funding from NEH, and UK researchers may receive funding from the AHRC. AHRC and NEH have recently developed a new funding opportunity that falls under this MOU.

The purpose of this new partnership with AHRC is to encourage more international collaboration in humanities research between US and UK scholars focused on examining the societal impacts of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies and ensuring such technologies are deployed and used safely and responsibly.

For this round, projects must focus their research on examining the societal impacts of AI from the perspective of the humanities or humanistic social sciences. NEH applicants may request up to $75,000 for projects with one US Project Director, or up to $150,000 with two or more US Project Directors.

Through this new opportunity, which will use a lead agency model, US and UK researchers will be able to submit a collaborative proposal that will undergo a single review process. Successful projects will receive two awards:  the UK-based applicant will receive a Bridging Responsible AI Divides—Dangers and Opportunities of Technology program (hereafter “BDOT”) award from AHRC while the US-based applicant will receive an award from the NEH, via the Dangers and Opportunities of Technology: Perspectives from the Humanities (DOT) program.

This partnership opportunity will rotate between the AHRC and the NEH for submission deadlines in March and September 2025 during this pilot period. For the first deadline, AHRC will act as the lead agency; NEH will act as the lead agency for the second deadline. Future opportunities may be possible, following positive assessments by both agencies.  

US and UK researchers are encouraged to read the AHRC funding announcement. AHRC’s website indicates the funding limits and submission regulations for the UK partners in an NEH-AHRC collaborative proposal. UK researchers may be part of only one NEH-AHRC award at any given time. Eligibility requirements for US researchers are described in the DOT Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO).

All proposals must represent an integrated, collaborative effort. This document provides guidelines for the preparation, submission, review, and award of NEH-AHRC collaborative projects.

DEADLINE

All proposals will be submitted by the lead UK institution to the UKRI/AHRC Funding Service grant management system by March 20, 2025.

Lead US institutions must submit a separate copy of the joint proposal by March 24, 2025, via Grants.gov using the instructions available here adhering to all of the DOT program requirements.

Instructions for applying for the second deadline in September 2025 will be posted under a separate PON. 
 

PROPOSAL SUBMISSION AND ELIGIBILITY

Upon receipt of the applications for this co-funded opportunity, NEH and AHRC will separately review the eligibility of each application and inform each other of the results of the eligibility review process. Eligibility rules for US institutions may be found in Section C of the DOT NOFO.  Eligibility rules for UK institutions may be found in Section 2 of UKRI’s Research Funding Guide. Proposals that request duplicative funding may be returned without review.

Applications must be determined to be eligible by both funders to proceed to peer review. An application that meets one funder’s eligibility rules but not the other will be deemed ineligible. When the AHRC is the lead agency, the same proposal must be provided to NEH within one week of the AHRC deadline.

By submitting an application, Project Directors and their institutions agree that AHRC may share reviews and other documents pertaining to the review process with NEH.

GUIDELINES

Narrative and Work Plan

1. The proposed work submitted under the NEH-AHRC Lead Agency Opportunity must represent an integrated collaborative effort. The project narrative of the proposal must include a description of the collaboration, including an explanation of the role(s) of the UK co-director(s) and collaborator(s), and an explanation of how the US-UK team will work together.
2. The proposal must describe the significance and impact of the proposed research to increase understanding of Artificial Intelligence technologies on society as well as the added value of the international collaboration compared to a purely domestic team. 
3. The proposal should describe the full proposed research project including all US and UK resources that will be part of the project.
4. The title of the proposal should be prefixed with "NEH-AHRC:" to indicate that the document is to be considered by both NEH and AHRC.

Outputs and Outcomes

This opportunity focuses on funding humanities-based research projects and cannot include the development of new AI technologies/tools/algorithms.  

Possible outputs from projects include:

• Publications of any kind (articles, books, reports, web resources) in any format (digital, print, hybrid)
• Digital resources
• Workshops or convenings               

Review Criteria

All applications for this opportunity will be evaluated according to the review criteria outlined in the  AHRC funding announcement.

Budget 

1. NEH applicants may request up to $75,000 for projects with one US Project Director, or up to $150,000 with two or more US Project Directors. 
   1. Funding amount requested per year from the AHRC must be less than or equal to the amount requested per year from NEH. 
2. Duration of support requested from the AHRC must be equal to the number of years of support requested from NEH, up to a maximum duration of two years.
3. US applicants indicate only the US expenses on the NEH budget form. AHRC applicants should indicate only the UK research expenses on the AHRC budget form.
4. The Budget Justification section of the NEH proposal should clearly differentiate the US budget from any similar funds requested by the UK team and justify the full American project budget. 
5. Do NOT list the UK budget as a sub-award in the NEH budget.  Sub-awards can be requested only for collaborating U.S. institutions eligible for NEH funding. 
6. Send a PDF copy of the AHRC budget form and budget justification in the Appendices of the proposal emailed to NEH. 
    

Project Personnel

1. UK investigators should NOT be listed as co-Project Directors (PDs) on the NEH Cover Sheet nor in the NEH budget. They should be described as a co-director or key collaborator in the Activities and Project Team section of the Narrative and in the List of Personnel attachment.  
2. One-paragraph biographies should be provided for all US and UK project personnel in the Biographies attachment, in the format described in the DOT NOFO.

ADDITIONAL DOCUMENTS

The NEH proposal must include all required documents and forms required by the DOT program NOFO (See Section 2, Application Components Table). Applications will not be shared between NEH and AHRC.

POST AWARD CONSIDERATIONS

Awardees will be required to acknowledge both NEH and AHRC in any reports or publications resulting from the award.

NEH awardees will be required to submit a white paper within 120 calendar days after the period of performance ends that documents the project’s findings, including lessons learned, so that others can benefit. NEH will publish the white paper on its website.

Requests for changes in awards (for example, for changes in scope) will be discussed by NEH and AHRC before a joint decision is made.

Questions

Inquiries from researchers about this funding opportunity should be directed to the Office of Digital Humanities at @email. 

Questions about the partnership between NEH and AHRC may be directed to the Office of Partnerships and Strategic Initiatives at @email. 

Yennie Tse
Assistant Chair for Partnerships and Strategic Initiatives, Office of the Chair

Brett Bobley
Director, Office of Digital Humanities