NEH Grant Programs
DFG/NEH Bilateral Digital Humanities Program: Enriching Digital Collections, Receipt Deadline: October 8, 2009
The deadline for this program has passed. New guidelines will be available in advance of the next deadline. In the interim, the guidelines below can be used for reference, but should NOT be used to prepare an application.
Date posted: July 2, 2009
Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) Number: 45.169
Questions?
Program questions from applicants in the United States should be directed to NEH’s Office of Digital Humanities at odh@neh.gov. Hearing-impaired applicants can contact NEH via TDD at 1-866-372-2930.
Grant Program Description
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) in the United States and the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft e.V., DFG) are working together to offer support for digitization projects in the humanities. These grants provide funding for up to three years of development in any of the following areas:
  • new digitization projects and pilot projects;
  • the addition of important materials to existing digitization projects; and
  • the development of tools and infrastructure to enhance the use of digitized resources and support international digitization work.
Collaboration between U.S. and German partners is a key requirement for this grant category. Each application must be sponsored by at least one eligible German individual or institution, and at least one U.S. institution (see Eligibility requirements below), and there must be a project director from each country. The partners will collaborate to write a single application package. The U.S. partner will submit the package to NEH via Grants.gov, and the German partner will submit it to DFG via regular postal service. (The German partner is also encouraged to submit a pdf version of the package via e-mail.)
All potential applicants should note that, while NEH and DFG each host a version of the guidelines on their respective Web sites, the requirements for the application package as outlined in Section IV, Application and Submission Information, are identical. However, each set of guidelines contains some variations in grant administration procedures to be followed by successful applicants. These variations reflect the local administrative and organizational requirements of each country.
Applications should explain the need for the U.S.-German partnership and the ways in which the transatlantic collections will be developed and managed.
Proposals for projects may include
  • developing tools and infrastructure to enhance the use of digitized resources by humanities scholars;
  • digitizing humanities collections that are relevant to the American or German scholarly community (or to both of them) for use in research and higher education;
  • developing a detailed plan for the digitization of humanities collections that could benefit humanities research and performing a limited pilot digitization program to test shared infrastructure and procedures;
  • connecting existing split digitized collections and detailing suitable transatlantic standards and communication strategies; and
  • creating a virtual archive or resource that would join complementary materials (analog or digital) internationally.
Successful applicants will be expected to create and make publicly available a final report, or “white paper,” as one of their work products. This report should document their project, including lessons learned, so that others can benefit from their experience.
DFG/NEH Enriching Digital Collections Grants may not be used for
  • the digitization of materials that are the responsibility of an agency of the U.S. federal government;
  • the digitization of materials that are not made regularly accessible for research, education, or public programming;
  • the retrospective conversion of a library’s general card catalog or the basic inventory of a museum’s collections;
  • the creation of software or the purchase of computer systems for records management;
  • the maintenance or upgrading of computer systems;
  • the acquisition of collections; or
  • the creation of teaching and learning resources, tools, and reference works designed exclusively for classroom instruction.
Open Access and Grant Products
Both NEH (as a taxpayer-supported federal agency) and DFG (as a publicly-financed independent agency) endeavor to make the products of their grants available to the broadest possible audience. Our goal is for scholars, educators, students, and the international public to have ready and easy access to the wide range of NEH and DFG project outcomes. For projects that lead to the development of Web sites, all other considerations being equal, NEH and DFG give preference to those that provide free access to the public. Detailed guidance on access and dissemination matters can be found in the dissemination section below.
III. Award Information
Awards range from $100,000 to $350,000 (approximately 70,000 to 260,000 € ) for up to three years. A representative institution from each country will receive its portion of the grant funds from the funding agency in its country (NEH in the U.S.; DFG in Germany). Projects must include a project director and institutional affiliation from each country, so that funds may be distributed according to respective national laws and funding guidelines. Successful applicants to NEH will be awarded a grant in outright funds or federal matching funds, depending on the applicant’s preference and the availability of NEH funds.
(Learn more about different types of NEH grant funding.)
The amounts requested from each funding agency should not differ by more than 20 percent; any disparity over 20 percent requires justification in the budget. See Budget, below, for more information.
Cost Sharing
Although cost sharing is not required, NEH is rarely able to support the full costs of projects approved for funding. In most cases, NEH grants cover no more than 50-60 percent of project costs.
DFG expects that participating institutions will make a reasonable contribution to the cost of the project. This contribution must be specified in the proposal.
Eligibility
Applications must be submitted to both NEH and DFG. Applications sent to only one agency will not be considered for review. See the instructions on How to Submit Your Application Via Grants.gov and How to Submit Your Application to DFG.
Late, incomplete, and ineligible applications will not be reviewed.
U.S. Partner Eligibility
Any U.S. nonprofit organization with IRS 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status is eligible, as are state and local governmental agencies and tribal governments. Grants are not awarded to individuals.
NEH generally does not award grants to other federal entities or to applicants whose projects are so closely intertwined with a federal entity that the project takes on characteristics of the federal entity’s own authorized activities. This does not preclude applicants from using grant funds from, or sites and materials controlled by, other federal entities in their projects.
German Partner Eligibility
Eligible applicants include scientific service institutions (such as libraries, archives, media and computer centres), research institutes, and scientists or academics (Ph.D. required) from any discipline working at German research institutions. As a rule, only publicly funded institutions are eligible to apply. For further details, see the Summary for Applicants and consult DFG Form 12.01 (18-page PDF).
Application and Submission Information

How to Prepare your Application
Application Advice and Proposal Drafts
Prior to submitting a proposal, applicants are encouraged to contact program officers who can offer advice about preparing the proposal. These comments are not part of the formal review process and have no bearing on the final outcome of the proposal, but applicants have found them helpful in strengthening their applications. You may submit a draft proposal to DFG or NEH (or to both of them) until six weeks prior to the deadline.
You will submit your single application to both funding agencies. Co-applicants should collaborate in order to create this single application package. The application materials should be exactly the same in the copies submitted to NEH and DFG, with the following exception: Applications submitted to NEH through Grants.gov should list a primary Project Director affiliated with a U.S.-based institution; applications submitted to the DFG should list a primary Project Director (Hauptantragsteller) affiliated with a German institution.
Proposals should be submitted in English. In exceptional cases and only following consultation with NEH staff and the DFG Head Offices, proposals may be submitted in German as well as English. In these cases the English version is binding.
The application should consist of the following parts.
  1. Description of the project and its significance
    Provide a one-page abstract written for a nonspecialist audience, clearly explaining the project’s importance to the humanities, its principal activities, and its expected results.
  2. Table of contents
    List all parts of the application and, beginning with the narrative, number all pages consecutively.
  3. Narrative
    Limit the narrative to twelve to fifteen single-sided and single-spaced pages. All pages should have one-inch (2.54-centimeter) margins, and the font size should be no smaller than eleven point. Use appendices to provide supplementary material.
    • Significance
      Justify the importance of the project on the basis of its long-term significance to research in the humanities.
      State the direct benefit to be derived from the collaboration of the two international partners.
      Describe the nature, size, and intellectual content of the humanities collections and discuss their relation to similar resources. Provide information about their current and past use or potential future use, their present level of intellectual description, the physical condition of the materials, and their storage conditions. Explain how your project relates to existing resources, discuss what this project will provide that they cannot, and define the probable audiences.
      Finally, for projects dealing with specific subsets of larger collections, state which specific materials will be made use of by the project, and explain why these materials are significant.
    • History, scope, and duration
      Provide a concise history of the project, including information about preliminary research or planning, financial support already received, and resources or research facilities available. If a project requires more than three years to complete, describe the scope and duration of the entire project, but show clearly the specific accomplishments or products intended in the period for which funding is requested. For longer-term or digital projects, describe plans to sustain the project at the end of the grant period. Explain how the project intends to broaden its base of support to allow updates and maintenance without additional NEH or DFG grants.
      If the project has been previously supported by NEH or DFG, compare the accomplishments in the current or past grant period with the intended goals. List any products or publications in print or electronic form. When appropriate, indicate print runs, sales, and royalties relating to publications. In the case of existing online projects, include the URL and provide use statistics and other relevant information.
    • Methodology and standards
      Explain the manner in which the project will be executed. Activities should conform to appropriate national standards and accepted professional practices. If your project’s methodology departs from usual standards and procedures, explain why the project’s goals require this approach and how the results would be compatible with other relevant resources that follow existing standards.
      Projects should make sure to take into account the DFG Practical Guidelines on Digitisation (status April 2009) (36-page PDF) when preparing this section.
      All applications should include sample materials or reports that show the final or anticipated form of the project or illustrate the experience of the project’s staff in doing comparable work. See Section 7, Appendices, below.
      Include an outline of the risks that could pose a threat to the project’s success, including their likelihood and severity, and explain how you would avoid them (or manage them if they occurred).
      Describe standards and best practices that will be followed to ensure the longevity of digital products and their interoperability with other resources and related materials. Describe the hardware and software to be employed and provide specific information about the following:
      Preparation and processing of material
      Describe how the material will be prepared for processing and how it will be processed, e.g., digital capture, keyboarding, optical character recognition, or conversion from another electronic format. Discuss the methods for formatting the material and ensuring quality control. When appropriate, indicate the levels of resolution, compression, image enhancement, and accuracy of textual conversion or transcription required to achieve the project’s goals. For text with markup, justify the choice of tagging scheme and the level of the markup.
      Organization of and access to material
      Explain the organization of the digitized material or database, including file structure, system capabilities, user access, and documentation. When appropriate, indicate the metadata scheme(s) that will be used to describe the materials (e.g., MARC, Dublin Core, EAD, METS), and explain the rationale for the choice(s). Provide information about metadata creation and controlled vocabularies (if applicable), and use an appendix to display sample data entry sheets, records, and screen displays. When appropriate, discuss the compatibility of the proposed technical framework with the practices of the user community. Discuss provisions for ensuring that your resource can be discovered by a search engine or become part of an aggregated resource such as a digital library, cooperative portal, or clearinghouse, or become integrated with other related resources.
      Intellectual property rights (IPR) and copyright
      Discuss any intellectual property or privacy issues that might affect the availability of the materials and whether permissions and informed consents have been obtained. Do the project directors or their institutions have the rights to disseminate the works outlined in the proposal? If IPR or copyright issues nevertheless remain, how will these be addressed during the course of the project?
      Storage, maintenance, and protection of data
      Describe the institution’s plans for storing, maintaining, and protecting the data, and, when applicable, for preserving or otherwise disposing of the original source material. Discuss both the technical and the administrative provisions for ensuring the preservation of long-term access to the information. Explain how the data will be archived (independent of the processing or delivery software and interface), to enable them to be moved to future media and formats. Document the institution’s ability to update and provide long-term access to the materials, as well as its commitment to doing so.
      Applicants may find it useful to consult A Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections (38-page PDF), which contains links to other useful resources and is supported by the National Information Standards Organization, or may consult the DFG Practical Guidelines for Digitisation (36-page PDF) for technical advice on digitization standards. .
    • Work plan
      Describe the work plan in detail, including the work to be done by each partner in the collaboration. A schedule indicating benchmarks of accomplishment during each stage of the project should be included in the appendices.
    • Nature of collaboration and staff
      Describe the nature and strengths of the intended collaboration and the methods planned to ensure the partnership coordination.
      Identify the project’s staff, including consultants, and describe their duties and qualifications for the specific responsibilities assigned to them. Indicate the amount of time that the principal members of the project’s staff will devote to the project. If the project has an advisory board, explain its function. In the appendices provide two-page résumés for major project staff and all consultants.
    • Dissemination
      Explain how the results of the project will be disseminated and why these means are appropriate to the subject matter and intended audience.
      Grantees should provide broad access to all grant products through the Internet, on-site use, interlibrary loan, or duplication of materials at cost, insofar as the conditions of the materials and intellectual property rights allow. We strongly encourage projects that offer free public access to online resources. All other considerations being equal, preference will be given to projects that provide free, online access to digital materials produced with grant funds.
  4. History of grants
    If the project has received previous support from any federal or nonfederal sources, including NEH or DFG, list on one page the sources, dates, and amounts of these funds. If the project has a long history of support, the sources and contributions may be grouped and summarized.
  5. Consultants and advisory board members
    List consultants to the project, members of the project’s advisory board (if there is one), and authors of letters of support (if provided).
  6. Budget
    U.S. partners must prepare a budget detailing costs and the requested amount from NEH, using the NEH Budget form (14-page PDF). German partners must prepare a budget detailing costs and the requested amount from DFG, following the structure and guidelines outlined under Section 4 (pp. 12-14) of DFG Form 12.01 (18-page PDF). The combined total amount requested must fall within the limits stated in the Award Information section above: $100,000 to $350,000 (approximately 70,000 to 260,000 € ).
    Applicants should endeavor to ensure that the budget amounts requested from each agency differ by no more than 20 percent, in order to maintain as closely as possible an equitable distribution of funds. For example: a German institution could request $110,000 (approximately €81,000), and the U.S. institution could request $100,000. In some rare cases, budgets may have more than a 20 percent difference in requested costs, but such cases should include a justification. Requests for $120,000 and $75,000 respectively would differ by more than 20 percent and thus would require justification. If applicants anticipate that the amounts of funds requested from NEH and DFG respectively will differ by more than 20 percent, they should contact agency representatives to discuss their proposals.
    For any outsourced work, third-party contractor costs should be included in the budget category “Services.” Attach a complete itemization of these costs to the budget form. If there is more than one contractor, each one must be listed on the budget form and the costs itemized separately.
    To the maximum extent practical, all procurement contracts must be made through an open and free competition. Awards shall be made to the bidder or offeror whose bid or offer is responsive to the solicitation and is most advantageous to the recipient, considering price, quality, and other factors. Applicants must justify procurement contracts in excess of $100,000 that are not awarded by competitive bids or offers.
    Permanent equipment may be purchased for a project, if an analysis demonstrates that purchasing is more economical and practical than leasing. Permanent equipment is defined as nonexpendable personal property costing $5,000 or more and having a useful life of more than one year.
    The following applies to U.S. Partners only:
    Consistent with the Buy American Act (41 U.S.C. 10a-c and Public Law 105-277), grantees and subrecipients who purchase equipment and products with grant funds should purchase only American-made equipment and products.
  7. Appendices
    Use appendices to provide
    • a work plan;
    • sample materials and reports;
    • comparative offers for work to be outsourced (e.g., to private firms for digitization work);
    • brief résumés (no longer than two pages) for staff with major responsibilities for the project’s implementation and for consultants to the project;
    • job descriptions for any additional staff who will be hired specifically to work on the project; and
    • letters of commitment from outside participants and cooperating institutions.
How to Submit Your Application via Grants.gov
Register or Verify Registration with Grants.gov
Applications for this program must be submitted via Grants.gov. Before using Grants.gov for the first time, each organization must register with the Web site to create an institutional profile. Once registered, your organization can then apply for any government grant on the Grants.gov Web site.
If your organization has already registered and you have verified that your registration is still valid, you may skip this step. If not, please see our handy checklist to guide you through the registration process. We strongly recommend that you complete or verify your registration at least two weeks before the application deadline, as it takes time for your registration to be processed. If you have problems registering with Grants.gov, call the Grants.gov help desk at 1-800-518-4726.
Download the Free Adobe Reader software
To fill out a Grants.gov application package, you will need to download and install the current version of Adobe Reader. The latest version of Adobe Reader, which is designed to function with PCs and Macintosh computers using a variety of popular operating systems, is available at no charge from the Adobe Web site (www.adobe.com).
Once installed, the current version of Adobe Reader will allow you to view and fill out Grants.gov application packages for any federal agency. If you have a problem installing Adobe Reader, it may be because you do not have permission to install a new program on your computer. Many organizations have rules about installing new programs. If you encounter a problem, contact your system administrator.
Download the Application Package
To submit your application, you will need to download the application package from the Grants.gov Web site. You can download the application package at any time. (You do not have to wait for your Grants.gov registration to be complete.) Click the button at the right to download the package.
Save the application package to your computer’s hard drive. To open the application package, select the file and double click. You do not have to be online to work on it.
You can save your application package at any time by clicking the “Save” button at the top of your screen. Tip: If you choose to save your application package before you have completed all the required forms, you may receive an error message indicating that your application is not valid. Click “OK” to save your work and complete the package another time. You can also use e-mail to share the application package with members of your organization or project team.
The application package contains three forms that you must complete in order to submit your application:
  1. Application for Federal Domestic Assistance—Short Organizational (SF-424 Short)—this form asks for basic information about the project, the project director, and the institution.
  2. Supplementary Cover Sheet for NEH Grant Programs—this form asks for additional information about the project director, the institution, and the budget.
  3. NEH Attachment Form—this form allows you to attach your narrative, budget, and the other parts of your application.
To assist applicants, Grants.gov provides a helpful troubleshooting page.
How to Fill Out the SF-424 Short Form
Select the form from the menu and double click to open it. Please provide the following information:
  1. Name of Federal Agency: This will be filled in automatically with “National Endowment for the Humanities.”
  2. Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance Number: This will be filled in automatically with the CFDA number and title of the NEH program to which you are applying.
  3. Date Received: Please leave blank.
  4. Funding Opportunity Number: This will be filled in automatically.
  5. Applicant Information: In this section, please supply the name, address, employer/taxpayer identification number (EIN/TIN), DUNS number, Web site address, and congressional district of the institution. Also choose the “type” that best describes your institution (you only need to select one).
    If your institution is located, for example, in the 5th Congressional District of your state, put a “5.” If your institution doesn’t have a congressional district (e.g., it is in a state or U.S. territory that doesn’t have districts or is in a foreign country), put a “0” (zero).
    All institutions applying to federal grant programs are required to provide a DUNS number, issued by Dun & Bradstreet, as part of their application. Project directors should contact their institution’s grants administrator or chief financial officer to obtain their institution’s DUNS number. Federal grant applicants can obtain a DUNS number free of charge by calling 1-866-705-5711. (Learn more about the requirement.)
  6. Project Information: Provide the title of your project. Your title should be brief, descriptive, and substantive. It should also be informative to a nonspecialist audience. Provide a brief description of your project. The description should be written for a nonspecialist audience and clearly state the importance of the proposed work and its relation to larger issues in the humanities. List the starting and ending dates for your project.
  7. Project Director: Provide the Social Security Number, name, title, mailing address, e-mail address, and telephone and fax numbers for the project director.
    Disclosure of Social Security Numbers is optional. NEH uses them for internal application processing only.
  8. Primary Contact/Grants Administrator: Provide the contact information for the official responsible for the administration of the grant (i.e., negotiating the project budget and ensuring compliance with the terms and conditions of the award). This person is often a grants or research officer, or a sponsored programs official. Normally, the Primary Contact/Grants Administrator is not the same person as the Project Director. If the project director and the grants administrator are the same person, skip to Item 9.
  9. Authorized Representative: Provide the contact information for the Authorized Organization Representative (AOR) who is submitting the application on behalf of the institution. This person, often called an “Authorizing Official,” is typically the president, vice president, executive director, provost, or chancellor. In order to become an AOR, the person must be designated by the institution’s E-Business Point of Contact. For more information, please consult the Grants.gov user guide, which is available at www07.grants.gov/applicants/app_help_reso.jsp.
How to Fill Out the Supplementary Cover Sheet for NEH Grant Programs
Select the form from the menu and double click to open it. Please provide the following information:
  1. Project Director: Use the pull-down menu to select the major field of study for the project director.
  2. Institution Information: Use the pull-down menu to select your type of institution.
  3. Project Funding: Enter your project funding information. Note that applicants for Challenge Grants should use the right column only; applicants to all other programs should use the left column only.
  4. Application Information: Indicate whether the proposal will be submitted to other NEH grant programs, government agencies, or private entities for funding. If so, please indicate where and when. NEH frequently cosponsors projects with other funding sources. Providing this information will not prejudice the review of your application.
    For Type of Application, check “new” if the application requests a new period of funding, whether for a new project or the next phase of a project previously funded by NEH. Check “supplement” if the application requests additional funding for a current NEH grant. If requesting a supplement, provide the current grant number. Before submitting an application for a supplement, applicants should discuss their request with an NEH program officer.
    For Project Field Code, use the pull-down menu to select the humanities field of the project. If the project is multidisciplinary, choose the field that corresponds to the project’s predominant discipline.
How to Use the NEH Attachment Form
You will use this form to attach the files that make up your application.
Your attachments must be in Portable Document Format (.pdf). We cannot accept attachments in their original word processing or spreadsheet formats. If you don’t already have software to convert your files into PDFs, many low-cost and free software packages will do so, To learn more, go to www.neh.gov/grants/grantsgov/pdf.html.
When you open the NEH Attachment Form, you will find fifteen attachment buttons, labeled “Attachment 1” through “Attachment 15.” By clicking on a button, you will be able to choose the file from your computer that you wish to attach. You must name and attach your files in the proper order so that we can identify them. Please attach the proper file to the proper button as listed below:
ATTACHMENT 1: To this button, please attach your description of the project and its significance. Please name the file “projectdescription.pdf”.
ATTACHMENT 2: To this button, please attach your table of contents. Please name the file “contents.pdf”.
ATTACHMENT 3: To this button, please attach your narrative. Please name the file “narrative.pdf”.
ATTACHMENT 4: To this button, please attach your history of grants. Please name the file “granthistory.pdf”.
ATTACHMENT 5: To this button, please attach your list of project consultants and advisory board members. Please name the file “consultants.pdf”.
ATTACHMENT 6: To this button, please attach your NEH budget. Please name the file “NEHbudget.pdf”.
ATTACHMENT 7: To this button, please attach your DFG budget. Please name the file “DFGbudget.pdf”.
ATTACHMENT 8: To this button, please attach your appendices. Please name the file “appendices.pdf”.
Use the remaining buttons to attach any additional materials (if appropriate). Please give these attachments meaningful file names and ensure that they are PDFs.
Uploading Your Application to Grants.gov
When you have completed all three forms, use the right-facing arrow to move each of them to the “Mandatory Documents for Submission” column. Once they have been moved over, the “Submit” button will activate. You are now ready to upload your application package to Grants.gov.
During the registration process, your institution designated one or more AORs (Authorized Organization Representatives). These AORs typically work in your institution’s Sponsored Research Office or Grants Office. When you have completed your application, you must ask your AOR to submit the application, using the special username and password that were assigned to him or her during the registration process.
To submit your application, your computer must have an active connection to the Internet. To begin the submission process, click the “submit” button. A page will appear, asking you to sign and submit your application. At this point, your AOR will enter his or her username and password. When you click the “sign and submit application” button, your application package will be uploaded to Grants.gov. Please note that it may take some time to upload your application package, depending on the size of your files and the speed of your Internet connection.
After the upload is complete, a confirmation page will appear. This page, which includes a tracking number, indicates that you have submitted your application to Grants.gov. Please print this page for your records. The AOR will also receive a confirmation e-mail message.
NEH suggests that you submit your application no later than 5:00 p.m. (Eastern Time) on the day of the deadline. That way, should you encounter a technical problem of some kind, you will still have time to contact the Grants.gov help desk for support. The Grants.gov help desk is open Monday to Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. (Eastern Time) at 1-800-518-4726. You can also send an e-mail to support@grants.gov.
To assist applicants, Grants.gov provides a helpful troubleshooting page.
Deadlines
Applications must be received by Grants.gov on or before October 8, 2009. Grants.gov will date- and time-stamp your application after it is fully uploaded. Applications submitted after that date will not be accepted.
How to Submit Your Application to DFG
Signed applications should be sent in duplicate by regular postal mail to the DFG Head Offices, III-LIS, Kennedyallee 40, 53170 Bonn. Applicants are also asked to send a pdf version of the application to the DFG email address specified in the “DFG Contact for German Partners” section below.
Application Review
Reviewers involved in the process will be asked to apply the following criteria in assessing applications.
  • Project Aims: the project’s intellectual contribution, including how it will contribute to research in the humanities.
  • Project Plans: the project’s methodological soundness, including its adherence to accepted standards and professional practices; the viability, efficiency, and productivity of the work plan, including staffing and equipment; the qualifications of the project’s staff; and the appropriateness of the project’s budget.
  • Partnership: the degree to which the proposal demonstrates the willingness of the institutions to work in an international partnership, and the potential for an extended partnership beyond the funding period.
  • Open Access and Dissemination: the project’s plan for providing access to grant products and disseminating project outcomes.
All other considerations being equal, preference will be given to projects that provide free, online access to digital materials produced with grant funds.
Review and selection process
Each proposal submitted to NEH and DFG will be evaluated by at least two independent reviewers. A panel of peer reviewers will be selected jointly by NEH and DFG. Reviewers will read each application and advise NEH and DFG about the application’s merits. DFG and NEH staff will comment on matters of fact or on significant issues that otherwise would be missing from these reviews and then will jointly prepare recommendations to the DFG Scientific Library Services and Information Systems Committee and the National Council on the Humanities. The NEH Chairman takes into account the advice provided by the review process (on the basis of the recommendations formulated by the joint DFG/NEH Panel) and the National Council on the Humanities and, by law, makes all final NEH funding decisions. The DFG Joint Committee takes into account the advice provided by the review process (on the basis of the recommendations formulated by the joint DFG/NEH Panel) and the DFG Scientific Library Services and Information Systems Committee and, by DFG statutes, makes all final DFG funding decisions. DFG and NEH will notify applicants in June 2010 whether proposals have been funded.
Award Administration Information
Information for U.S. Partners
Award notices
Applicants will be notified by e-mail of the decision by late June 2010. Institutional grants administrators and project directors of successful applications will also receive at that time award documents by mail. Applicants may obtain the evaluations of their applications by sending an e-mail message to odh@neh.gov.
Administrative requirements
Before submitting an application, applicants should review their responsibilities as an award recipient and the lobbying certification requirement.
Award conditions
The requirements for awards are contained in the General Terms and Conditions for Awards to Organizations, any specific terms and conditions contained in the award document, and the applicable OMB circulars governing federal grants management.
Reporting requirements
A schedule of report due dates will be included with the award document.
Interim and final performance reports will be required. Further details can be found in Performance Reporting Requirements.
A final Federal Financial Report (SF-425) will be due within ninety days after the end of the award period.
Information for DFG Partners
German partners are encouraged to review the DFG Guidelines for the Use of Funds (Form 2.012e) (6-page PDF) for award administration information specific to institutions in Germany.
Points of Contact
If you have questions about the program, contact:
NEH Contact for U.S. Partners
If you have questions about the program, contact the Office of Digital Humanities staff at odh@neh.gov. Applicants wishing to speak to a staff member by telephone should provide in the e-mail message a telephone number and a preferred time to call.
If you need help using Grants.gov, contact:
Grants.gov: http://www.Grants.gov
Grants.gov help desk: support@Grants.gov
Grants.gov customer support tutorials and manuals: http://www.Grants.gov/applicants/applicant_help.jsp
Grants.gov support line: 1-800-518-GRANTS (4726)
DFG Contact for German Partners
Dr. Christoph Kümmel
Scientific Library Services and Information Systems (Wissenschaftliche Literaturversorgungs- und Informationssysteme LIS) / Humanities and Social Sciences Division
Tel. +49 (228) 885-2857
Christoph.Kuemmel@dfg.de
Other Information
This information is for the U.S. partner in the project. German partners are encouraged to review the DFG guidelines for other information specific to institutions in Germany.
Privacy Policy
Information in these guidelines is solicited under the authority of the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act of 1965, as amended, 20 U.S.C. 956. The principal purpose for which the information will be used is to process the grant application. The information may also be used for statistical research, analysis of trends, and Congressional oversight. Failure to provide the information may result in the delay or rejection of the application.
Application Completion Time
The Office of Management and Budget 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 the average time to complete this application is fifteen hours per response. This estimate includes time for reviewing instructions, researching, gathering, and maintaining the information needed, and completing and reviewing the application.
Please send any comments regarding the estimated completion time or any other aspect of this application, including suggestions for reducing the completion time, to the Office of Publications, National Endowment for the Humanities, Washington, D.C. 20506; and to the Office of Management and Budget, Paperwork Reduction Project (3136-0134), Washington, D.C. 20503. 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.
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