Funding

Partial / Stipend

Program dates

Apr 1, 2028

Fellowship•Remote

NEH Fellowships

National Endowment for the Humanities

Application Deadline

April 14, 2027

Official Page

NEH Fellowships are awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the US federal agency for the humanities, to individual scholars who need uninterrupted time to finish a piece of humanities research.

The money buys time: $5,000 for each month of full-time work, six to twelve months in total, $30,000 to $60,000 per award. There is no host campus and no institutional affiliation is required, so fellows work wherever they are based and travel as the research demands.

The Division of Research runs the competition once a year. Over the last five rounds it drew about 1,033 applications a year and made about 69 awards, a funding rate of 7 percent. The 2026 round accepted only projects on the history, culture and government of the United States, or on Western civilization from antiquity to the present; guidelines for the round closing 14 April 2027 are not published yet.

Benefits & funding

  • $5,000 for each month of award time, from $30,000 up to $60,000 in total.
  • Six to twelve months of full-time research and writing; the applicant chooses the length.
  • The 2026 competition carried about $3.6 million and expected about 60 awards.
  • No institutional affiliation needed — independent scholars and junior scholars are encouraged to apply.
  • Supported outputs: books, critical editions, digital resources or publications, peer-reviewed articles, translations with annotation or critical apparatus, and other scholarly resources.

Eligibility

  • US citizens, whether they live 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.
  • A foreign national who takes up permanent residence outside the United States between the deadline and the end of the award period forfeits eligibility; leaving the country temporarily is fine.
  • Anyone currently enrolled in a degree-granting program is not eligible. An applicant who has met every requirement for a degree and is waiting for it to be conferred must add a letter from the dean or department chair confirming that as of the deadline.
  • No other NEH individual award, including a Chairman’s Award to Individuals, may be held or accepted in the same federal fiscal year.
  • Recipients must work full time on the project and set aside teaching, administrative assignments and other major activities.
  • Out of scope: creative writing, autobiographies, memoirs and creative nonfiction, graphic novels and graphic history, documentary films, student research including dissertations, textbooks, children’s literature, inventories, how-to books, the creation or performance of art, and projects outside the humanities disciplines.
  • The 2026 round was limited to American history and culture and to Western civilization; the subject scope of the next round will be set by guidelines still to come.

Can you apply?

Open to all applicants

No nationality, residency, education, or experience limits are listed.

Circlebreaker is a free database of global fellowships, scholarships and programs — every one decoded like this.

We only check the criteria we have data for. Always confirm full eligibility on the official page before applying.

Application process

  1. 1
    Wait for the round’s guidelines — the program announcement and the Notice of Funding Opportunity are posted before applications open on 15 January 2027.
  2. 2
    Prepare the narrative (three pages), the work plan (one page), the bibliography (one page) and the résumé (two pages).
  3. 3
    Arrange letters of reference early; in the 2026 round referees had until 4 June 2026, about six weeks after the application deadline.
  4. 4
    Complete the SF-424 and the NEH supplemental forms and submit the package through Grants.gov as an individual applicant.
  5. 5
    Submit before the deadline — the 2026 round closed at 11:59 p.m. US Eastern Time on the deadline date.
  6. 6
    NEH staff check eligibility and completeness, peer reviewers assess the application, and decisions follow roughly nine to twelve months after the deadline.

Program timeline

  1. Application materials available

    Jan 15, 2027

  2. Application deadline

    Apr 14, 2027

  3. Expected notification of decisions

    Jan 31, 2028

  4. Earliest project start date

    Apr 1, 2028

  5. Latest project start date

    Sep 1, 2029

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