Funding Resources for Humanities, Arts, & Social Science Scholarship

Division of Sponsored Programs logo

FIRST STEP:

Visit the UI Division of Sponsored Programs' website, which contains many sources of internal and external funding, including state and federal agencies and private organizations. Note that DSP's site lists funding sources for scholarship in all disciplines, so you'll need to look for sources specifically pertaining to arts, humanities, and social sciences.

DSP site

Obermann grants

The Obermann Center offers grants to faculty, staff, and student researchers via our various programs. This page is intended as a collection of other arts, humanities, and social science funding opportunities, both internal and external to the University of Iowa. (If you know of a resource we should add to this page, please email us.) 

Obermann Programs

In addition to the opportunities below...

Visit the Research Development Office website and consider an external grant review

Browse the UI Grant Bulletin

Sign up for the UI Grant Bulletin monthly email

Browse the Pivot funding database (for help navigating Pivot, see https://dsp.research.uiowa.edu/pivot-funding-database-available-ui-community) 

Internal

  • If you are seeking funding for an event, you can approach relevant departments and units (e.g., CLAS, the Grad College, the Lecture Committee). Be clear if you are seeking financial support or a partnership that will increase awareness of the event. If departments act as co-sponsors in any way, they should be required to publicize it to their faculty/students.

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Specifically for Graduate Students:

A resource from the University of Iowa Graduate College: https://grad.uiowa.edu/grad-success/fellowship-and-grant-support

External

  • Humanities Without Walls is a consortium of humanities centers (including the Obermann Center) at sixteen research universities throughout the Midwest and beyond. HWW aims to create new avenues for collaborative and interdisciplinary research, publicly engaged scholarship, and professional opportunities for faculty and graduate students.
  • https://www.humanitieswithoutwalls.illinois.edu/

  • The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) is one of the leading private institutions supporting scholars in the humanities and interpretive social sciences at the doctoral and postdoctoral levels. Fellows and grantees in all programs are selected by committees of scholars appointed for this purpose.
  • https://www.acls.org/fellowships-grants/

  • The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation actively works with grantee partners and is deeply immersed in the fields in which it invests. Its grants are designed to activate the spirit of learning through the creation and sharing of bold new knowledge and the inspiration felt in art.
  • https://www.mellon.org/resources

  • The Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program offers over 800 awards in more than 135 countries for U.S. citizens to teach, conduct research and carry out professional projects around the world. College and university faculty, as well as artists and professionals from a wide range of fields can join over 400,000 Fulbrighters who have come away with enhanced skills, new connections, and greater mutual understanding.
  • https://eca.state.gov/fulbright

  • The Institute for Advanced Study is one of the world’s leading centers for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. The Institute exists to encourage and support fundamental research in the sciences and humanities—the original, often speculative, thinking that produces advances in knowledge that change the way we understand the world. It provides for the mentoring of scholars by faculty, and it offers all who work there the freedom to undertake research that will make significant contributions in any of the broad range of fields in the sciences and humanities studied at the Institute.
  • https://www.ias.edu/programs-outreach

  • The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation provides fellowships for advanced professionals in all fields (natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, creative arts) except the performing arts. The fellowships are awarded to men and women who have already demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts. Appointments are ordinarily made for one year, and in no instance for a period shorter than six consecutive months. The amounts of the grants will be adjusted to the needs of the Fellows, considering their other resources and the purpose and scope of their plans.
  • https://www.gf.org/

  • The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency created in 1965. It is one of the largest funders of humanities programs in the United States. Since its creation in 1965, NEH has awarded more than $5.6 billion for humanities projects through more than 64,000 grants.
  • https://www.neh.gov/grants

  • The National Humanities Center in North Carolina is a residential institute for advanced study in history, languages and literature, philosophy, and other fields of the humanities. Each year, the Center awards fellowships to scholars of demonstrated achievement and to promising younger scholars.
  • http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/become-a-fellow

  • The Huntington Library is a collections-based research institute that promotes humanities scholarship on the basis of its library holdings and art collections. The Library awards over 150 research fellowships annually. 
  • https://www.huntington.org/fellowships

  • The Carnegie Corporation of New York works to promote democracy, education, and peace across the globe, advancing knowledge and understanding in these areas of central importance. A grantmaking foundation established by Andrew Carnegie in 1911, the Corporation supports innovative projects, organizations, and individuals that are striving to create meaningful change.
  • https://www.carnegie.org/programs/

  • The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University is one of the world’s leading centers for interdisciplinary exploration. It brings students, scholars, artists, and practitioners together to pursue curiosity-driven research, expand human understanding, and grapple with questions that demand insight from across disciplines. Each year, the Radcliffe Institute hosts leading scholars, scientists, artists, and practitioners from around the world in its renowned residential Fellowship Program. Academic Ventures and Engagement brings together scholars from across the University and around the world to foster multidisciplinary collaborations that lead to new ideas, innovative research, and the advancement of knowledge; programs range from small, intensive workshops to large public conferences. The Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America offers a variety of research grants to support new scholarship on women, gender, and sexuality.
  • https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/opportunities-for-researchers

  • The Imagining America consortium (IA) brings together scholars, artists, designers, humanists, and organizers to imagine, study, and enact a more just and liberatory ‘America’ and world. Working across institutional, disciplinary, and community divides, IA strengthens and promotes public scholarship, cultural organizing, and campus change that inspires collective imagination, knowledge-making, and civic action on pressing public issues.
  • IA invites graduate students with a demonstrated interest and commitment in public scholarship ​and/or artistic practice to apply for the PAGE Fellowship. Awardees receive a year’s worth of mentorship, professional development training, and community support as well as a travel stipend to attend a Fellows Summit during the national conference.
  • https://imaginingamerica.org/what-we-do/fellowships/page/