The Public Scholars program encourages non-academic writers to deepen their engagement with the humanities by strengthening the research underlying their books, and it encourages academic writers in the humanities to communicate the significance of their research to the broadest possible range of readers. NEH encourages submissions from independent scholars and junior scholars. Projects are eligible at any stage in their development.

The 2026 Public Scholars competition will accept only projects for research in American history and culture and Western civilization. Competitive applications must focus on topics in the history, culture, and government of the United States in any period from the Colonial Era to the present, or topics in Western civilization from antiquity to the present.

NEH Awards to Individuals

Funding Opportunity Type(s): New Federal Assistance Listing Number: 45.160 NEH Review Period: Through December 31, 2028

Contact Information: Division of Research Programs Telephone: 202-606-8200 Email: Research@neh.gov Telecommunications Relay Service: 7-1-1

OMB Control Number: 3136-0134, Expiration Date: October 31, 2027

---

Executive Summary

This notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) solicits applications for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Awards to Individuals programs administered by the Division of Research: Awards for Faculty at HBCUs, Fellowships, Fellowships for Advanced Social Science Research on Japan, and Public Scholars. These programs support individual scholars pursuing projects that embody exceptional humanistic research, rigorous analysis, and clear writing. You may submit an application in Grants.gov when NEH issues a specific Program Announcement for the opportunities listed above. You are responsible for reviewing and following all requirements in the NOFO and in the specific Program Announcement.

Funding Opportunity Title: NEH Awards to Individuals Funding Opportunity Number: See specific Program Announcement Federal Assistance Listing Number: 45.160 Application Deadlines: See specific Program Announcement Anticipated Award Announcements: Approximately 9-12 months after the application deadline in the specific Program Announcement Award Amounts: See specific Program Announcement. Amounts are based on $5,000 per month for full-time work. Cost Sharing/Match Required: No Period of Performance: See specific Program Announcement Eligible Applicants: Individuals; see C. Eligibility Information.

Program Resource Pages:

• Awards for Faculty at HBCUs
• Fellowships
• Fellowships for Advanced Social Science Research on Japan
• Public Scholars

Published: March 2, 2026

---

Table of Contents

• A. Program Description
• B. Federal Award Information
• C. Eligibility Information
• D. Application and Submission Information
• E. Application Review Information
• F. Federal Award Administration Information
• G. Agency Contacts
• H. Other Information

---

A. Program Description

1. Purpose

NEH awards grants to individual scholars pursuing projects that embody exceptional humanistic research, rigorous analysis, and clear writing. Applications must clearly articulate a project’s value to humanities scholars, general audiences, or both. These awards provide recipients with time to write, to travel, and to conduct research and other project-related activities. Projects may be at any stage of development and may be based on original research or provide a synthesis of ideas. NEH invites research applications from scholars in all humanities disciplines, regardless of geographic or chronological focus, except as noted in the individual Program Announcement, and encourages submissions from independent scholars and junior scholars.

• The Fellowships program supports scholars writing for other scholars or general readers.
• The Awards for Faculty program supports the work of faculty at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
• The Public Scholars program supports the writing of well-researched nonfiction books in the humanities written for the broad public.
• The Fellowships for Advanced Social Science Research on Japan program supports research and writing on modern Japanese society and political economy, Japan's international relations, and U.S.-Japan relations.

See the individual Program Announcement for each opportunity for the criteria NEH will use to evaluate applications.

Program Outputs and Outcomes

The outputs of a successful individual grant may include, but are not limited to, research and writing towards completion of a major research project. The outcomes of a successful individual grant may include, but are not limited to books, monographs, peer-reviewed articles, e-books, born-digital projects and resources, translations with annotations or a critical apparatus, or critical editions.

You will describe your project outputs and outcomes, and how they would support the overall purpose of the program, in Attachment 1: Narrative. If you receive an award, NEH will assess your performance based on the outputs you identify in the proposal. See F3. Reporting.

2. Funding Restrictions

You may not use awards made under this NOFO for the following purposes unless expressly allowed and articulated in the individual Program Announcement.

Restricted activities:

• promotion of a particular political, religious, or ideological point of view
• promotion of gender ideology
• promotion of discriminatory equity ideology
• support for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) or diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) initiatives or activities
• environmental justice initiatives or activities
• advocacy of a particular program of social or political action
• support of specific public policies or legislation
• lobbying

Programmatic exclusions:

• research by students enrolled in a degree program, including research for doctoral dissertations or theses
• preparation or revision of textbooks
• educational or technical impact assessments
• books for children or young adults
• graphic novels, works of graphic history, or other graphic nonfiction, including historical fiction
• creation or production of documentary films
• inventories of collections
• guidebooks, how-to books, and self-help books
• projects that fall outside of the humanities
• the creation or performance of art
• creative writing, autobiographies, memoirs, and creative nonfiction
• policy studies
• social science research that does not address humanistic questions and/or utilize humanistic methods

See Program Announcements for additional restrictions.

NEH makes awards in this program to individuals; indirect costs are unallowable. NEH will make payment to the recipient’s personal bank account only.

3. Background

NEH offers this funding opportunity under the authority of 20 U.S.C. § 956. Awards are subject to the NEH General Terms and Conditions for Awards to Individuals.

Under Section 3(a) of the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965, as amended, “The term ‘humanities’ includes, but is not limited to, the study of the following: language, both modern and classical; linguistics; literature; history; jurisprudence; philosophy; archaeology; comparative religion; ethics; the history, criticism and theory of the arts; those aspects of the social sciences which have humanistic content and employ humanistic methods; and the study and application of the humanities to the human environment with particular attention to reflecting our diverse heritage, traditions, and history and to the relevance of the humanities to the current conditions of national life.”

Use the Funded Projects Query Form to find examples of NEH-supported projects.

Learn more about NEH.

---

B. Federal Award Information

1. Type of Application and Award

NEH seeks new applications in response to this notice. NEH will provide funding in the form of grants. You may revise and resubmit previously rejected applications.

2. Summary of Funding

Award amounts NEH will provide a stipend of $5,000 per month for full-time work to successful applicant and will prorate the stipend accordingly for programs that allow part-time work.

NEH will award outright funds to successful applicants. Outright funds are not contingent on additional funding from other sources. This program does not require cost sharing.

NEH will not determine the funding available each fiscal year until Congress enacts the agency’s final budget. Accordingly, this NOFO is issued subject to the availability of appropriated funds and does not obligate NEH to make any awards.

Period of performance The period of performance is the span of time during which you will work on your NEH-supported project. You should request a period of performance that suits your schedule and the needs of your project. Each program has its own rules about the period of performance. Please see individual Program Announcements for specifics.

Your period of performance must start on the first day of a month and end on the last day of a month.

---

C. Eligibility Information

1. Eligible Applicants

You do not need to have an institutional affiliation to apply to these programs.

You must be one of the following to be eligible:

• A U.S. citizen residing domestically or abroad
• A foreign national who has lived in the United States or its jurisdictions for at least the three years prior to the application deadline.

Prior to applying to this opportunity, individuals with H-1B visas should consult with their employer to determine whether an NEH award and any required deliverables would constitute a material change to the terms and conditions of their employment such that a new or amended petition must be filed with the appropriate authorities. NEH is not responsible for ensuring that an H-1B visa holder’s acceptance of an NEH award complies with the terms of their visa and is unable to provide advice about the status of an H-1B visa.

Foreign nationals who take up permanent residence outside the United States any time between the application deadline and the end of the period of performance will forfeit their eligibility. Leaving the U.S. on a temporary basis is permitted.

Organizations are ineligible to apply.

Each program has additional rules about eligibility. Please see individual Program Announcements for specifics.

2. Other Eligibility Information

Resubmissions and multiple submissions You may revise and resubmit previously rejected applications. Resubmissions are subject to the application requirements and review criteria of the current competition.

You may not submit more than one application for a NEH individual award at the same deadline. For example, you may not apply for a Fellowship and Public Scholars award in the same year.

If you submit multiple applications to a competition (including submitting to the wrong funding opportunity or making corrections/updates), NEH will accept only your last validated submission prior to the deadline under the correct Grants.gov funding opportunity.

Limitations regarding other NEH awards You may not hold any other NEH individual award, including a Chairman’s Award to Individuals, in the same federal fiscal year. You may not hold two or more NEH individual awards with overlapping periods of performance or in support of the same activities. NEH will not delay the period of performance beyond the stated timelines of the Program Announcement to accommodate overlapping individual awards.

You may not apply for activities for which you previously received NEH funding.

You may not serve as the project director or key personnel on an NEH institutional award while working full time on an NEH individual award.

Currently enrolled students While you do not need to have an advanced degree, you are not eligible to apply if you are currently enrolled in a degree granting program. You are eligible if you have satisfied the requirements for a degree and are awaiting its conferral, but you must include a letter from the dean of the conferring school or your department chair attesting to your status as of the application deadline in the degree conferral attachment.

Concurrent grants from other organizations You may simultaneously hold fellowships or grants from institutions other than NEH — including sabbaticals and grants from your own institution — in support of the same project during your period of performance.

Collaborative projects The programs under this notice are designed for individual researchers; awards may not be divided. You are eligible to apply if you are working as part of a collaborative team but seeking funding only for yourself. If you are seeking funding for more than one scholar in a collaborative project, each individual must:

• submit a separate application specifying their individual contribution (Peer reviewers will evaluate each application on its own merits.)
• independently meet the eligibility requirements
• clearly explain how the work will be divided and the extent to which each collaborator’s contribution depends on that of the other(s)

NEH will consider each application from members of a collaborative project separately. Collaborating scholars affiliated with an eligible institution are encouraged to apply to the Collaborative Research program.

Funding to other federal entities NEH does not issue awards to other federal entities. If your project is so closely intertwined with a federal entity that the project takes on characteristics of the federal entity’s own authorized activities, it is ineligible. You may use funds from, or sites and materials controlled by, other federal entities in your project.

---

D. Application and Submission Information

1. Application Package

You must apply using Grants.gov Workspace. You can find this funding opportunity in Grants.gov under the funding opportunity number in the Program Announcement or on the program resource page under the Division of Research.

Once you have located the funding opportunity in Grants.gov, you will find the application package under the “Package” tab.

You must complete a multistep registration process to submit your application. See D3. Grants.gov Registration Process.

2. Content and Form of Application Submission

Your application will consist of a series of forms available in Grants.gov Workspace, and other components that you will prepare and upload to the Attachments Form. The Application Components Table in each Program Announcement helps you prepare a complete application.

All applications require a project narrative, work plan, bibliography, and résumé. Refer to the Program Announcement for writing prompts and page limits, along with information about any additional components unique to a program. You are not required to submit a budget.

NEH will not review:

• incomplete, nonresponsive, or ineligible applications
• applications missing any required documents or relevant conditionally required documents
• applications that exceed mandatory page limits or deviate from formatting instructions
• applications with attachments in non-PDF format
• applications with attachments other than those requested in this notice or in the Program Announcement

Your attachments must be PDFs and conform to the following formatting requirements:

• pages no larger than standard letter size (8 ½" x 11”)
• margins of at least one inch on all sides
• single spacing
• a readable font such as Arial, Georgia, Helvetica, or Times New Roman, no smaller than 11 points
• any standard citation style is acceptable; citations are included in page counts

Instructions for Grants.gov Forms

All applications will include these Grants.gov forms, available in your Grants.gov Workspace:

• SF-424 Application for Federal Assistance – Individual
• NEH Supplemental Information for Individuals Form
• Project/Performance Site(s) Location Form
• Attachments Form

SF-424 Application for Federal Assistance – Individual

This form requests basic information about you and your proposed project. Items 1, 2, and 4 will be automatically filled in; leave item 3 blank.

5a-d. Applicant Information a.-c. Provide your name, telephone number, email address, and mailing address. d. Indicate your congressional district with your two-character state abbreviation followed by your three-character district number. For example, if you reside in the 5th congressional district of Alabama, enter “AL-005.” If you reside in a state or U.S. jurisdiction that does not have districts, enter “000” in place of the district number. If your residence is outside the U.S., enter “00-000.”

6. Project Information a. Project Title: Provide your project’s title. It should be brief (no more than 125 characters, including spaces), descriptive of the project and easily understood by the general public. b. Project Description: Provide a brief description of your project (no more than 1000 characters, including spaces). Write the description for a non-specialist audience and clearly state the importance of the proposed work and its relation to larger issues in the humanities. This description will appear on your application cover sheet. If funded, this description will also appear in NEH’s database of funded projects. c. Proposed Project: List the start and end dates for your project. Your period of performance must start on the first day of the month and end on the last day of the month. The dates that you enter here will determine the maximum amount of your award. For more information about allowable time periods and how NEH calculates awards, see B2. Summary of Funding.

7. Signature By clicking on the “I Agree” box, you certify the following:

1. You are not presently debarred, suspended, proposed for debarment, declared ineligible, or voluntarily excluded from participation in covered transactions by any federal department or agency, and have not—within the three years preceding the submission of this application—been convicted of or had a civil judgment rendered against you for commission of fraud or a criminal offense in connection with a public (federal, state, or local) transaction or a contract under a public transaction; for violation of federal or state antitrust statutes; for commission of embezzlement, theft, forgery, bribery, falsification or destruction of records, making false statements, or receiving stolen property; had any public transactions terminated for cause or default; and are not presently indicted for or otherwise criminally or civilly charged by a governmental entity with any of the preceding offenses. See 2 CFR 180 and 3369.
2. You are not delinquent in the repayment of any federal debt or you are providing explanatory information about any delinquency. Examples of relevant debt include student loans, delinquent taxes, delinquent child support payments, and delinquent payroll taxes for household or other employees. See OMB Circular A-129.
3. You will comply with the General Terms and Conditions for Awards to Individuals.

NEH Supplemental Information for Individuals Form

• Field of Project: Select the field(s) of your project from the drop-down menu. List the primary field first. Program staff will consider this information when assigning your application to a review panel.
• Project Director Field of Study: Select the field of study that best describes your area of expertise from the drop-down menu.
• Address Information: Indicate whether the address that you provided on the Application for Federal Assistance SF 424 – Individual form is your home or work address.
• Institutional Affiliation: If you are not affiliated with an institution of higher education, check “No.” If you are affiliated with an institution of higher education, provide the information for that institution. Include your institution’s Unique Entity Identifier (UEI). You can request this number from your institution’s sponsored research office.
• Status: NEH does not require applicants in this program to be professional scholars but does categorize all applicants as “junior scholars” or “senior scholars.” Please indicate your category as follows:
  • You are a junior scholar if you received your highest formal degree fewer than seven years ago.
  • You are a senior scholar if you are more than seven years beyond the day you received your highest degree.
• Reference Letters: Provide the name, email address, and affiliation for each of your two references. See D.4 Submission Dates and Times for instructions and deadlines for submitting reference letters and confirming NEH has received them.
• Nominating Official: Check the box labeled “Yes” and do not enter any name or address.

Project/Performance Site Location(s) Form

Provide the primary location and any other locations where you will conduct project activities during the period of performance. For “Organization,” you may substitute a brief description of locations that do not have a formal organizational name (e.g., "Residence of applicant” or “Interview site in Chicago to be determined”).

Enter congressional districts using the two letter state abbreviation followed by your three-character district number. For example, if your work site is in the 5th congressional district of Alabama, enter “AL-005.” If it is in a state or U.S. jurisdiction that does not have districts, enter “000” in place of the district number. If it is outside the U.S., enter “00-000.”

Attachments Form

You will upload your project narrative, work plan, bibliography, résumé, and any additional attachments to Grants.gov using this form. Convert all non-PDF files (e.g., Word, Excel, images) to PDFs. Do not attach files that have been password-protected, encrypted, or digitally signed. Grants.gov will reject applications containing files not converted to PDF or that include PDFs with security features.

Consult the Application Components Table in the Program Announcement to name and sequence your attachments.

Grants.gov may reject your application if:

• file names exceed 50 characters
• multiple files have the same name
• file names include characters other than the following: A-Z, a-z, 0-9, underscore, hyphen, space, period, parentheses, curly braces, square brackets, ampersand, tilde, exclamation point, comma, semicolon, apostrophe, at sign, number sign, dollar sign, percent sign, plus sign, and equal sign

Learn about Adobe software compatibility with Grants.gov.

3. Grants.gov Registration Process

Login.gov

Login.gov is a secure sign-in service used by participating federal agencies. You must have a Login.gov account to access Grants.gov. Create an account at Login.gov.

Grants.gov Registration and Creation of Applicant Profiles

Grants.gov is a clearinghouse to post federal funding opportunities and submit applications to NEH and other federal agencies. You must submit your application via Grants.gov Workspace.

If you do not already have an account, you will need to register and link your Login.gov account to Grants.gov. Follow the Grants.gov Quick Start Guide for Applicants to register, create a Workspace, find a funding opportunity, and troubleshoot issues.

After registering, you must add an Individual Applicant Profile to apply to programs for individuals. Refer to the Grants.gov instructions for adding a profile.

You will not be able to apply until you have added an Individual Applicant Profile. The “Apply” button on the Grants.gov opportunity page will function properly only after you have completed this step. If the “Apply” button is gray rather than red, or if clicking it results in an error message, confirm that your individual applicant profile is complete, re-entering it if necessary.

If you previously registered with Grants.gov and created an Individual Applicant Profile, NEH encourages you to confirm that your account is active.

Grants.gov may assign a number for the Unique Entity Identifier. Do not change this number.

NEH recommends that you complete your registration at least two weeks before the application deadline. If you fail to allow sufficient time to register with Grants.gov, NEH will not extend the deadline or waive the online submission requirement.

If you have problems registering with Grants.gov or adding an Individual Applicant Profile, contact Grants.gov Applicant Support at 1-800-518-4726 or support@grants.gov. Obtain a case number when requesting help.

4. Submission Dates and Times

Applications

The application due dates are in the Program Announcement. Applications must be complete, follow length and formatting requirements, and be validated by Grants.gov under the correct funding opportunity prior to the deadline to be considered under this notice.

It is your responsibility to confirm that Grants.gov and subsequently NEH have received your application. Check your Grants.gov application status.

When NEH receives your application, the agency will assign it a tracking number beginning with FEL, FO, FZ, or HB. A tracking number does not guarantee that your application is free of technical problems (such as missing attachments or failure to convert attachments to PDFs). If your files are not correctly formatted, NEH’s electronic grants management system (eGMS), will reject your application and notify you by email. eGMS cannot detect other errors such as missing components or excess pages. NEH recommends you submit your application 48 hours prior to the deadline so that you have time to correct any technical errors. It is your responsibility to correct any errors prior to the deadline.

NEH will not comment on the status of your application except regarding matters of eligibility, completeness, and responsiveness.

Except for the rare cases covered by its late submission policy, NEH will not consider applications submitted after the deadline.

Letters of reference

To ensure full consideration, letters of reference must be submitted online no later than the date specified in the Program Announcement.

NEH asks you to solicit two letters of reference. Provide the names, email addresses, and affiliations on the NEH Supplemental Information for Individuals Form. Include only one email address for each letter writer in the relevant field. Ideally, they should come from different institutions.

Letters of reference are more effective if they consider the specific proposed activity and attest to your ability to undertake it. They should address the review criteria with reference to your project.

If you are proposing a translation, one of your letters must be from an expert in the language(s) of your project and should assess the one-page sample translation that you are submitting.

Approximately two to three weeks after the deadline, NEH will email your letter writers, asking them to submit their letters online by the date specified in the Program Announcement.

You are responsible for ensuring that your letter writers receive and respond to the NEH requests for their letters by the deadline. NEH will notify you by email when it receives each of your letters of reference.

You may check the status of your letters by logging in to the secure area of NEH’s website. Enter your NEH application number and your Grants.gov tracking number. You will be able to see the names and email addresses of your letter writers and whether their letters have arrived. You may send reminders to your letter writers (including the upload link) from this site.

NEH accepts letters after the deadline, and late letters will be added to your application. However, it is possible that reviewers will not take them into account. If you must change references after the application deadline, contact program staff at research@neh.gov.

Elected government officials, NEH staff, and current members of NEH’S National Council on the Humanities may not write reference letters.

Missing reference letters will not disqualify an application from review.

5. Intergovernmental Review

This funding opportunity is not subject to intergovernmental review under Executive Order 12372.

---

E. Application Review Information

1. Review Criteria

Peer reviewers will use the criteria listed in the specific Program Announcement.

2. Review and Selection Process

NEH staff review all applications for eligibility, completeness, and responsiveness. The agency then conducts a peer review process for all eligible and complete applications.

Peer reviewers are experts in their fields with knowledge and expertise relevant to the project activities supported by the program. NEH instructs peer reviewers to evaluate applications according to the review criteria in the Program Announcement. Peer reviewers must comply with federal ethics rules governing conflicts of interest.

NEH program officers supplement the peer reviewers’ comments to address matters of fact or significant points that the peer reviewers have overlooked. They then make funding recommendations to the National Council on the Humanities and the NEH Chairman. The National Council meets at least twice each year to review applications and advise the NEH Chairman. By law, the Chairman has the sole authority to make final funding decisions.

Following NEH’s public announcement of funded projects, you may request copies of the peer reviewers’ evaluations of your proposal by contacting research@neh.gov.

Learn more about the NEH review process.

Apply to be a peer reviewer for NEH.

3. Assessment of Risk and Other Pre-Award Activities

Following the Chairman’s initial selection of applications for support, the NEH Office of Grant Management (OGM) conducts a risk assessment for selected applications. OGM will consider the applicant’s past performance, if applicable; confirm the applicant’s continued eligibility; and evaluate compliance with public policy requirements.

OGM may request that you submit additional programmatic or administrative information or undertake certain activities in anticipation of an award. Such requests do not guarantee that NEH will make an award.

After completing its risk assessment, NEH will determine whether making an award would be consistent with the agency’s risk management policy, whether it must impose any special terms and conditions, and what funding level is appropriate. NEH may elect not to issue awards to applicants with management or financial instability that affects their ability to comply with the terms and conditions of the award (2 CFR § 200.206), as applicable.

Award decisions are discretionary and are not appealable to any federal official or board.

4. Anticipated Announcement and Award Dates

NEH will notify you of its funding decision by email by the date specified in the Program Announcement, approximately 9-12 months after the application deadline. This is not an authorization to begin performance or incur related costs. Successful applicants will be required to complete the NEH Individual Programs Acceptance Form, from which NEH will determine your payment schedule.

---

F. Federal Award Administration Information

1. Federal Award Notices

If your application is selected for an award, the NEH Office of Grant Management will send award documents through eGMS Reach.

2. Administrative and National Policy Requirements

Awards are subject to the General Terms and Conditions for Awards to Individuals, and any specific terms and conditions that NEH places on the award in the Notice of Action.

The recipient must comply with all applicable Executive Orders for the duration of the period of performance of the award. Executive Orders can be accessed via the Federal Register: Executive Orders, and additional guidance is provided on NEH’s website.

In particular, the recipient, including any subrecipient(s), must comply with Executive Order 13899, Combating Anti-Semitism (Federal Register: Combating Anti-Semitism), and Executive Order 14188, Additional Measures To Combat Anti-Semitism (Federal Register: Additional Measures To Combat Anti-Semitism), to curb or combat anti-Semitism, especially in schools and on university and college campuses. Discrimination or harassment against Jews on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving Federal financial assistance may violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI), 42 U.S.C. 2000d et seq.

Debarment, suspension, ineligibility, and voluntary exclusion certification

NEH will not process awards for individuals with delinquent federal debt or for individuals who have been suspended, debarred, declared ineligible, or voluntarily excluded from eligibility for covered transactions by any federal department or agency.

NEH may not make an award to an individual until they have complied with all applicable requirements. If you have not fully complied with these requirements by the time NEH is ready to issue your award, NEH may determine that you are not qualified to receive an award.

You must comply with 2 CFR § 180.335 and .350 with respect to providing information regarding all debarment, suspension, and related offenses information, as applicable.

If you cannot attest to the statements in this certification, explain why not in the Explanation of delinquent federal debt attachment. (See application component table in the program announcement.)

Providing access to NEH-funded products

NEH strives to make the products of its awards available to the broadest possible audience by providing ready and easy access to its grant products to scholars, educators, students, and the American public. All other considerations being equal, NEH gives preference to projects that provide free access to the public.

Projects that produce peer-reviewed journal articles must make these products publicly accessible in accordance with NEH’s Public Access Policy.

You must comply with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. Consult Design for Accessibility: A Cultural Administrator's Handbook.

Copyright information

Subject to applicable law, you may copyright work that you develop or acquire under an award. In accordance with 2 CFR § 200.315(b), NEH reserves a royalty-free, nonexclusive, and irrevocable right to reproduce, publish, or otherwise use the work for federal purposes, and to authorize others to do so. This includes the right to require recipients and subrecipients to make such works available according to the agency Public Access Policy.

Acknowledging NEH support

Materials publicizing or products resulting from NEH-funded activities must contain an acknowledgment of NEH support. Consult Acknowledgment and Publicity Requirements for NEH Awards and Publicizing Your Project for guidance.

Materials publicizing or products resulting from Fellowships for Advanced Social Science Research on Japan must contain an acknowledgment of NEH and JUSFC support.

Protecting Personal Information

If you collect personal identifiable information (PII) as part of your NEH-funded award, you are responsible for protecting and storing it. You must take all reasonable and appropriate actions to prevent inadvertent disclosure, release, or loss of PII. Consult Protecting Personal Information | The National Endowment for the Humanities for more guidance. NEH is not liable if a recipient incurs an inadvertent disclosure, release, loss, or data breach of PII.

Consent for Survey Participation

If your NEH-funded project includes surveys, you must obtain informed consent before enrolling participants in a study.

NEH Research Misconduct Policy

In accordance with the Federal Policy on Research Misconduct, NEH established procedures for handling allegations of research misconduct applicable to both internal and external research programs. Review the NEH Research Misconduct Policy.

Coordination of geographic information and related spatial data

If you request funding for the development, acquisition, preservation, or enhancement of geospatial data, products, or services, you must first conduct a due diligence search of the Data.gov list of datasets to determine whether the needed data, products, or services already exist. If not, you must produce the proposed geospatial data, products, or services in compliance with applicable Federal Geographic Data Committee guidance.

Eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse

Help NEH eliminate fraud and improve management by reporting allegations or suspicions of waste, fraud, abuse, mismanagement, research misconduct (fabrication, falsification, plagiarism), or unnecessary government expenditures to the NEH Office of the Inspector General.

Termination

NEH reserves the right to terminate awards consistent with 2 CFR § 200.340.

3. Reporting

You must submit a final performance report within 120 calendar days after the period of performance ends. The final performance report collects information about your accomplishments during the period of performance; the outputs arising or anticipated to arise from the project; financial support apart from NEH sources; the project’s impact; and acknowledgement of NEH support. You must submit the final report online through eGMS Reach. NEH will provide further information in the Notice of Action.

Learn more about the reporting requirements for individual recipients.

A final financial report is not required.

Projects that produce peer-reviewed journal articles must make these products publicly accessible in accordance with NEH’s Public Access Policy.

NEH encourages you to send copies of books resulting from research supported by NEH awards to the Division of Research. You will find contact information below. In addition, you are asked to update the “Products and Prizes” tab in eGMS Reach for any publications or prizes resulting from NEH support.

---

G. Agency Contacts

If you have questions about the program, contact:

Division of Research National Endowment for the Humanities 400 Seventh Street, SW Washington, DC 20506 202-606-8200 research@neh.gov

If you have questions about administrative requirements contact:

Office of Grant Management National Endowment for the Humanities 400 Seventh Street, SW Washington, DC 20506 202-606-8494 grantmanagement@neh.gov

If you are deaf or hard of hearing, you can contact NEH using telecommunications relay at 7-1-1.

If you have questions about registering or renewing your registration with login.gov or SAM.gov, contact the Federal Service Desk, Monday – Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, at:

Federal Service Desk U.S. calls: 866-606-8220 International calls: +1 334-206-7828

For assistance in registering with or submitting your application through Grants.gov:

Grants.gov Applicant Support Telephone: 1-800-518-4726 International Calls: +1-606-545-5035 support@grants.gov

Always obtain a case number when calling for support.

---

H. Other Information

Related funding opportunities

Collaborating scholars with an institutional affiliation are encouraged to apply to the Collaborative Research program. If you are creating an edition or translation with a scholarly team and have an institutional affiliation, you are encouraged to consider the Scholarly Editions and Translations program.

You may find related funding opportunities with your state or jurisdictional humanities council. As mandated by Congress, NEH’s program budget supports these councils, which play a critical role in carrying out NEH’s mission and goals at a local, grassroots level. Contact information for each council can be found here: https://www.neh.gov/about/state-humanities-councils.

Privacy policy

NEH solicits the information in this Notice of Funding Opportunity under the authority of the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act of 1965, as amended, 20 U.S.C. 951, et seq. Disclosure of the information is voluntary. The principal purpose for which NEH will use the information is to process the application, which may include determining eligibility, evaluating the application, selecting recipients, and administering the award program. Panelists and other third parties may assist in the evaluation of applications, in which case NEH will take appropriate security measures with respect to the information provided to such individuals for review. NEH may also use or disclose the information it collects as required by law and for governmental purposes such as statistical research, analysis of trends, Congressional oversight, and the other routine uses set forth in the systems of records notice (“SORN”) published by NEH in the Federal Register. NEH ordinarily will not publicly disclose the contents of applications that NEH does not select for funding, except as set forth in the SORN. Failure to provide the information solicited in this Notice may result in rejection of the application.

Application completion time

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) requires federal agencies to supply information on the time needed to complete forms and also to invite comments on the paperwork burden. NEH estimates that on average it takes sixty hours to complete an application. This estimate includes time for reviewing instructions; researching, gathering, and maintaining the information needed; and completing and reviewing the application. Time needed may vary from program to program.

You may send any comments regarding the estimated completion time or any other aspect of this application, including suggestions for reducing the completion time, to the PRA Officer at pra@neh.gov. According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, no persons are required to respond to a collection of information unless it displays a valid OMB number. The OMB Control Number for this Notice of Funding Opportunity is 3136-0134, expiration date October 31, 2027.

---

Public Scholars Program Announcement

Funding Opportunity Title: Public Scholars Funding Opportunity Number: 20260422-FZ Federal Assistance Listing Number: 45.160 Application Deadline: April 22, 2026, 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time Anticipated Award Announcement: January 2027 Anticipated FY 2027 Funding: Approximately $900,000 Estimated Number and Type of Awards: Approximately 15 grants Award Amounts: $30,000 to $60,000 ($5,000 per month for full-time work; prorated for part-time) Cost Sharing/Match Required: No Period of Performance: The period of performance is 6-12 months. Projects must start between April 1, 2027, and September 1, 2028. Eligible Applicants: U.S. citizens residing domestically or abroad and foreign nationals who have lived in the United States or its jurisdictions for at least the three years prior to the application deadline. See eligibility information below and in the Notice of Funding Opportunity for additional requirements.

Program Resource Page: https://www.neh.gov/grants/research/public-scholar-program Webinar: Pre-recorded webinar posted to resource page Published: March 2, 2026

---

Purpose

The Public Scholars program encourages non-academic writers to deepen their engagement with the humanities by strengthening the research underlying their books, and it encourages academic writers in the humanities to communicate the significance of their research to the broadest possible range of readers. NEH encourages submissions from independent scholars and junior scholars. Projects are eligible at any stage in their development.

The 2026 Public Scholars competition will accept only projects for research in American history and culture and Western civilization. Competitive applications must focus on topics in the history, culture, and government of the United States in any period from the Colonial Era to the present, or topics in Western civilization from antiquity to the present.

Review criteria

Peer reviewers will use the following criteria to review applications for this program:

1. The appeal and intellectual significance of the proposed book for general readers, and its potential for promoting a deeper understanding of American history and culture and Western civilization.
2. The applicant’s record of research and experience in interpreting the humanities for general audiences.
3. The quality of the conception, definition, organization, and description of the project; and the breadth and depth of the humanities research underlying the project.
4. The quality of the writing sample and the applicant’s clarity of expression.
5. The feasibility and appropriateness of the proposed plan of work, the soundness and probable reach of the dissemination plan, and the likelihood that the applicant will complete the project.

Funding restrictions specific to this program

See section A.2 in the Individual Programs NOFO for the full list of funding restrictions for awards to individuals.

You may not use awards made under this notice for the following purposes:

• projects that do not involve research in American history and culture or Western civilization
• fiction, including historical fiction and philosophical novels
• anthologies and edited collections of essays or primary source documents
• publications consisting primarily of transcribed interviews, oral histories, or responses to questionnaires
• translations and scholarly editions
• projects whose primary product will be a digital archive or database, or audiovisual materials
• projects devoted primarily to promoting or disseminating a completed book
• development of curricula or teaching methods and theories

---

Period of Performance

Public Scholars awards can be from 6 to 12 months. You may work on your project part-time or full-time, or combine periods of part-time and full-time work, but the period of performance must be continuous. If you propose a time period of less than the equivalent of six full-time months, NEH will reject your application. It may not exceed 12 months, even if it includes part-time work.

You may request a period of performance start date between April 1, 2027, and September 1, 2028.

You must:

• work at least half-time on your project throughout your period of performance
• forego other major activities, including teaching, while holding a full-time award
• carry a reduced teaching load when working part time on your project, if you teach while holding an award

---

Eligibility

See sections C.1 and C.2 in the Individual Programs NOFO for full eligibility information, including resubmission, collaborative projects, and projects supported by previous NEH grants.

You may not accept or hold any other NEH individual award, including a Chairman’s Award to Individuals, in the same federal fiscal year.

You must have written at least one nonfiction book published by a university or trade press and be credited as its sole author. You must list the relevant publication(s) on your résumé, providing a citation sufficient to identify the work(s). NEH will reject your proposal if you fail to do so.

You may not meet this requirement with a co-authored volume, an edited collection of essays or anthology, a scholarly edition, a translation, a dissertation, a book that has not been published by the application deadline, or a self-published book. (Self-published books include books published by a press that requires payment from the author to the press as a condition of publication.)

---

Application deadline

Applications must be submitted by April 22, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time.

Applications must be complete, follow length and formatting requirements, and be validated by Grants.gov under the correct funding opportunity prior to the deadline to be considered under this notice.

---

Application components

See the Application Component Table below to learn what a complete application entails, and the sections following it for information about the content of those components.

See the Individual Programs NOFO for instructions for the Grants.gov forms in your application package (SF-424 Application for Federal Assistance-Individual, NEH Supplemental Information for Individuals Form, Project/Performance Site Location(s) Form, Attachments form).

Your attachments must be PDFs and conform to the following formatting requirements:

• pages no larger than standard letter size (8 ½" x 11”)
• margins of at least one inch on all sides
• single-spacing
• a readable font such as Arial, Georgia, Helvetica, or Times New Roman, no smaller than 11 points
• any standard citation style is acceptable; citations are included in page count

Application Component Table

Application Component	File Name Designation	Page limits
Attachments
1: Narrative	narrative.pdf	3 (mandatory)
2: Work plan	workplan.pdf	1 (mandatory)
3: Bibliography	bibliography.pdf	1 (mandatory)
4: Résumé	resume.pdf	2 (mandatory)
5: Writing sample	writingsample.pdf	20 (mandatory)
6: Publisher’s letter of interest or commitment	publisherletter.pdf	Optional
7: Explanation of delinquent federal debt	delinquentdebt.pdf	Conditionally required
Grants.gov forms
SF-424 Application for Federal Assistance - Individual		Required
NEH Supplemental Information for Individuals Form		Required
Project/Performance Site(s) Location Form		Required
Attachments Form		Required

Attachment 1: Narrative (required)

Organize your narrative using the following headings. Each section aligns with one or more review criteria NEH will use to evaluate your proposal. Your narrative should be succinct, well organized, and free of technical terms and jargon so that peer reviewers can understand the proposed project. Per the Policy on the Use of Artificial Intelligence for NEH Grant Proposals, you must acknowledge (by use of footnotes or other marginal notations) when you have inserted AI-generated text into your proposal.

a. Significance and contribution (aligns primarily with review criterion 1) Describe the appeal and significance of the proposed project for general readers. Explain why your topic will be of interest to a general audience, and how it advances humanities knowledge. Summarize the project, explaining its scope and the basic ideas, problems, arguments, questions, texts, people, and/or events that it will explore. Discuss how it relates to previous work on the topic and how your work makes a new contribution.

b. Sources and organization (aligns primarily with review criteria 1 and 3) Discuss your sources and research materials. Explain how you will use appropriate primary and/or secondary sources, including such things as historical or contemporary documents or other writings, artifacts or objects, literary or artistic or cinematic or visual works, print or digital publications or other digital resources, interviews, observation (including participant observation), the administration of surveys or questionnaires, or other fieldwork. Explain how you will locate or select your sources and how they will support your treatment of the topic. Explain how you plan to organize your book. Provide a chapter outline, with brief explanations of each chapter’s contents.

c. Competencies, skills, and access (aligns primarily with review criteria 2 and 5) Explain your competence in the area of your project and describe your experience in conveying scholarship to, or otherwise writing for, a broad audience. If the subject is new to you, explain your reasons for working in it and your qualifications to do so. Specify your level of competence in any language or skills needed for the study. If relevant, specify the arrangements for access to archives, collections, or institutions that contain the resources you need, or for interviews with relevant people. If you are proposing to work with a collaborator, indicate that person’s competencies. If you are proposing a biography of a living person, discuss the degree of cooperation you have from that person and how this affects your project.

d. Final product and dissemination (aligns primarily with review criteria 1 and 5) The output of a Public Scholars award is a book for a general audience. Describe your final product(s) and the audience(s) you aim to reach. Discuss why your treatment is appropriate to the subject matter and audience. Indicate when you expect to submit the project for publication and when you expect the book to appear. If you have a publisher, describe your plans to disseminate and market the book, explaining how you will reach general readers. If you do not have a publisher, describe your plans to secure one. If you propose creating supplemental digital materials, discuss their technical specifications and explain how you will support and maintain them beyond the period of performance. Explain how you will handle the documentation of sources, and what form you expect the documentation to take. Briefly discuss how you will balance readability against the need for thoroughness and precision in your documentation of sources. If the project involves publishing materials that are under copyright, indicate your plans for securing the necessary permission.

Your narrative must not exceed three pages. Name the file narrative.pdf.

Attachment 2: Work plan (required)

Present a schedule for the period of performance (in increments of three months or fewer). This schedule can be in narrative form or by using a table. Indicate the current state of the project and identify what, if any, parts of the project you have already completed. Explain the tasks you expect to accomplish during the period of performance. If you will not complete the project during the period of performance, state when you expect to complete it. You should not include a chapter outline. Chapter outlines and descriptions, if applicable, should be part of your narrative.

Your work plan 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.

Your timeline should include where you will work and, if you will be in more than one location, how long you will spend in each.

If you received NEH support for an earlier stage of the same project, indicate the program, what was accomplished during that award period and how the proposed work plan builds on your previous support.

If you and another researcher are seeking funds for the same project, identify them and state if they have received or submitted a proposal for 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.

Your work plan must not exceed one page. Name the file workplan.pdf.

Attachment 3: Bibliography (required)

Your bibliography should consist of primary and secondary sources that relate directly to the project. Include works that pertain to both the project’s substance and its theoretical or methodological approaches to give a well-rounded representation of your project. Peer reviewers will use the bibliography to assess your knowledge of the subject area.

Your bibliography must not exceed one page. Any standard bibliographic format is acceptable. Items referenced in the narrative need not appear in the bibliography if the citation in the narrative enables readers to identify the work.

Name the file bibliography.pdf.

Attachment 4: Résumé (required)

Include a résumé with the following information:

• 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 digital tools or methodologies, and if applicable, in any relevant foreign languages

Your résumé must not exceed two pages. Name the file resume.pdf.

Attachment 5: Writing sample (required)

You must submit a writing sample. NEH strongly recommends that you submit a draft chapter or partial chapter of the proposed book if possible. If a draft chapter is not available, a sample in the style of the proposed book is acceptable.

Your writing sample should demonstrate how the final product will read, and your ability to appeal to a general audience. If it is drawn from the proposed book, it should demonstrate how you will document your sources or contain a note explaining this.

Your writing sample must not exceed 20 PDF pages.

You may submit the writing sample as typescript (i.e., as manuscript pages) or as a reproduction of previously published pages.

• If you submit your sample as typescript (i.e., as manuscript pages), you must use a font no smaller than standard 11-point. NEH recommends that you submit a double-spaced sample. Single-spaced samples containing more than the equivalent of 20 double-spaced pages may not receive full consideration from reviewers. You may include end notes or footnotes (either single-spaced or double-spaced), tables, visual material, captions, a bibliography, and/or an explanatory headnote, provided they are contained within the 20-page limit.
• If you submit a reproduction of previously published pages, you may include either one or two published pages on each page of the PDF. The sample may include end notes or footnotes, tables, visual material, captions, a bibliography, and/or an explanatory headnote. You may make abridgments to conform to the 20-page limit, and you may include a note explaining what has been omitted. The entire sample, including any such ancillary material, must be contained within the 20-page limit. NEH recommends that you limit your sample to approximately 7,000 words. Longer samples may not receive full consideration from reviewers.

If the sample consists of material that will appear in the proposed book, include a headnote explaining how the sample and the proposed book relate. For example, specify which chapter it is, whether it is a complete or partial chapter, or whether you will ultimately use parts of it in several different chapters. This explanation must be included within the 20-page limit.

If the sample has been previously published, indicate this and list the publication on your résumé.

The sample may not include a table of contents, outline, or abstract of the proposed book or portions of it (this information belongs in the narrative).

You must be the author of the sample. It must not be co-authored, unless you are proposing a co-authored book, in which case you may submit a sample co-authored with your proposed collaborator.

NEH recommends that you submit a single piece of writing as your sample, rather than multiple pieces.

Name the file writingsample.pdf.

Attachment 6: Publisher’s letter of interest or commitment (optional)

If you have already explored publication arrangements, you may submit a letter of interest or commitment from a publisher. The letter should be from an official representative of the publisher. Letters of commitment should indicate the physical format(s) planned for the book, dissemination plans, and print-run expectations.

If you submit a letter, it must be included together with your other materials. It may not be submitted separately or added to your application after the deadline.

Name the file publisherletter.pdf.

Attachment 7: Explanation of delinquent federal debt (conditionally required)

If you receive an offer of an award and are delinquent in the repayment of any federal debt, you will be asked to provide explanatory information including evidence that you have entered into a repayment agreement with the Internal Revenue Service, and that you are current on all payments due. Examples of relevant debt include delinquent student loans, taxes, child support payments, and payroll taxes for household or other employees. See OMB Circular A-129. NEH encourages you to submit this information with your application, but you will be required to submit it if you receive an award.

Name the file delinquentdebt.pdf.

---

Letters of reference

To ensure full consideration, letters of reference must be submitted online no later than May 6, 2026. For additional information on letters of reference, see Section 4: Letters of Reference in the Individual Programs NOFO.

---

Award announcements

Applicants will receive notification about their application in January 2027.

---

Federal award documents

If NEH selects your application for an award, the NEH Office of Grant Management will send your award documents through eGMS Reach starting in March 2027.

---

Agency contacts

If you have questions about the program, contact:

Division of Research National Endowment for the Humanities 400 Seventh Street, SW Washington, DC 20506 202-606-8200 publicscholar@neh.gov

If you have questions about administrative requirements or allowable costs, contact:

Office of Grant Management National Endowment for the Humanities 400 Seventh Street, SW Washington, DC 20506 202-606-8494 grantmanagement@neh.gov

If you are deaf or hard of hearing, you can contact NEH using telecommunications relay at 7-1-1.