The Fellowships Open Book Program (FOBP) is administered by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) in partnership with the Office of Digital Humanities and the Divisions of Research and Education Programs. This limited competition provides grants to U.S.-based nonprofit publishers and accredited nonprofit institutions of higher education to produce open access digital editions of books based on NEH-funded research. The program offers fixed-amount awards of $6,600 per book to support the preparation and release of e-books under a Creative Commons license, making them freely downloadable to a broad audience including educators, students, and the general public. The program targets books originally published, reissued, or newly edited from 2010 onward, or forthcoming within the period of performance.

The primary objective of the FOBP is to expand access to significant works in the humanities by leveraging affordable e-book technologies. The program promotes public engagement with scholarship by encouraging publishers to distribute works that are rooted in NEH-supported research. This includes a wide array of disciplines and topics as defined by the NEH’s scope of the humanities. Supported publications must include proper attribution to the NEH and be distributed through at least two major e-book platforms such as JSTOR, Project MUSE, or Amazon.

Awards are nonrenewable and support a 12-month project period. No cost sharing or matching funds are required. Applicants may not function solely as fiscal agents and must contribute substantively to the execution of the project. Books eligible for funding must not be edited volumes or previously supported by the FOBP. Authors must be paid a minimum royalty of $600 per book and provide a letter of commitment. Applications will be accepted on three dates in 2025: March 12, July 16, and November 12. Performance periods are based on the submission date, with award activities beginning several months post-deadline.

Applicants must submit forms through Grants.gov, including required components like author commitment letters and book details, following strict formatting and content guidelines. All documents must be in PDF format and comply with application structure and naming conventions. The submission process also requires registration with SAM.gov and Grants.gov, which may take several weeks. NEH will not accept late applications due to incomplete registration.

Evaluation of applications includes NEH review for eligibility and responsiveness, followed by a risk assessment by the Office of Grant Management. Applicants will be notified of funding decisions approximately four months after submission. Fund disbursement is contingent upon completion of the milestone of publishing the open access e-book. Recipients are also required to submit performance and financial reports post-award.