The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), through its Division of Research Programs, is offering the 2025 Fellowships program to support individual scholars conducting advanced research in the humanities. The program is designed to provide recipients with the time and resources to engage in full-time scholarly work, resulting in outputs such as books, monographs, peer-reviewed articles, translations with critical apparatus, digital materials, and similar scholarly products. The program is open to scholars from all disciplines and backgrounds, including independent and junior scholars, with no restrictions on geographic or chronological focus. The expected outputs must demonstrate exceptional humanistic research, clarity of writing, and rigorous analysis.

The funding scope allows for award amounts ranging from $30,000 to $60,000, calculated at a fixed rate of $5,000 per month, for a period of performance between six and twelve months. The award is a grant made directly to individuals, not organizations, and no cost sharing or matching is required. Approximately $4 million in funding is anticipated for fiscal year 2026, to be distributed among around 80 recipients. Awardees must commit to full-time work on their project and may not engage in other major professional responsibilities during the funded period. The project start date must fall between January 1, 2026, and September 1, 2027, and awards will be announced in December 2025.

Eligible applicants include U.S. citizens residing either in the U.S. or abroad and foreign nationals who have lived in the U.S. or its jurisdictions for at least three years prior to the application deadline. Currently enrolled students are not eligible unless they have completed all degree requirements by the deadline and provide confirmation from their institution. Individuals may submit only one application per cycle and may not apply concurrently to other NEH individual fellowship programs such as the Public Scholars program or Faculty Awards. Applicants who have received previous NEH individual awards must disclose any overlap and demonstrate the value of continued support.

Applications must be submitted through Grants.gov by April 9, 2025, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time. Applicants are encouraged to register early with Grants.gov and to allow ample time to complete their application. Required components include a narrative (3-page limit), work plan (1 page), bibliography (1 page), and résumé (2 pages), as well as additional documents based on the specifics of the project such as translations or datasets. Letters of reference are also required and must be submitted separately by May 7, 2025.

Review criteria include the intellectual significance and clarity of the project, the quality and feasibility of the work plan, the qualifications of the applicant, and the likelihood of project completion and dissemination. Awards are subject to NEH’s standard terms and conditions, and projects must not include unallowable activities such as curriculum development, textbook preparation, or projects outside the humanities. Applicants with questions may contact the Division of Research Programs at 202-606-8200 or fellowships@neh.gov. A pre-application webinar is scheduled for February 19, 2025, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern Time.