NEH Fellowships are awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the US federal humanities agency, that give individual scholars six to twelve months of uninterrupted time for a research project.
There is no host campus and no institutional affiliation is required: fellows work where they are based and travel as the research demands. The 2026 round accepted only projects on American history and culture or Western civilization; guidelines for the round closing 14 April 2027 are not yet published.
Benefits & funding
- $5,000 for each month of award time, $30,000 to $60,000 in total, paid directly to the fellow rather than to an institution.
- Six to twelve months of full-time work; teaching, administrative assignments and other major activities must be set aside.
- Supported outputs: books, articles, critical editions, annotated translations, digital resources and other scholarly resources.
Eligibility
- US citizens, living in the United States or abroad.
- Foreign nationals who have lived in the United States or its jurisdictions for at least the three years before the application deadline; taking up permanent residence outside the United States before the award period ends forfeits eligibility, while temporary absences are fine.
- Not open to anyone currently enrolled in a degree program; an applicant awaiting conferral of a completed degree needs a letter from the dean or department chair.
- No other NEH individual award, including a Chairman’s Award to Individuals, in the same federal fiscal year.
- The 2026 round was limited to American history and culture or Western civilization; creative writing, memoirs, textbooks and dissertation research are never funded.
Can you apply?
Here's who can apply
Decoded from the official rules. A free account checks them against your passport, degree and age in seconds.
Eligible nationalities
USA
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Application process
- 1Watch for the round’s program announcement and Notice of Funding Opportunity; applications open on 15 January 2027.
- 2Submit through Grants.gov as an individual applicant by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on the deadline (2026 round); you may apply to only one NEH program per deadline.
- 3NEH then asks your referees for letters; in the 2026 round they were due 4 June, about six weeks after the application deadline.
Program timeline
Applications open
Jan 15, 2027
Application deadline
Apr 14, 2027
Expected notification of decisions
Jan 31, 2028
Project start window
Apr 1, 2028 to Sep 1, 2029