NEH Announces New Funding Opportunity to Support Research on the State and Impact of the Humanities 

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is pleased to announce a new funding opportunity to support empirical quantitative and qualitative research on the humanities and their impact. 

NEH’s new State and Impact of the Humanities grant program, offered through the agency’s Office of Data and Evaluation (ODE), supports data-grounded research studies that investigate the state, impact, and value of the humanities in the United States. 

The funding opportunity offers grants of up to $150,000 for research that seeks to understand the humanities in one or more of the following categories: Humanities Education, Humanities Research, Public Humanities, Preservation and Access, and Humanities Infrastructure. Supported activities may include but are not limited to: data analysis, data collection, digitization, dissemination, and planning.

The NEH State and Impact of the Humanities funding opportunity was developed in response to a call for comments from humanities organizations and practitioners on areas of interest  for data-driven research on trends within and on the health of the humanities, summarized in the report “Assessing the State of the Humanities.”

The grant program is administered by NEH’s Office of Data and Evaluation (ODE), which supports the agency in fostering a thriving humanities sector through data collection, sharing, and analysis. Through its grant programs and administrative activities, ODE supports data-grounded research on the humanities and analyzes data related to NEH’s grantmaking to inform agency decision-making. Research funded through the new NEH State and Impact of the Humanities program will complement ongoing research by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences on the size and health of the nonprofit humanities, arts, and cultural sectors in the U.S., which is supported by a partnership between NEH and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). 

The application deadline for the State and Impact of the Humanities funding opportunity is April 16, 2025. The program accepts applications in two funding categories: 

• Level 1 awards of up to $75,000 and up to 12 months which support projects with clearly defined research questions, data, and scopes, at the planning or testing stages;
• Level 2 awards of up to $150,000 and up to 24 months which support projects at the implementation stage.

Interested applicants should consult the funding opportunity’s guidelines for additional information, and direct questions about the program to: @email. 

National Endowment for the Humanities: Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation. Additional information about the National Endowment for the Humanities and its grant programs is available at www.neh.gov.