Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants
What do you mean by innovation?
An innovative project creates something new, offering an interesting new approach to tackling a problem. Innovation can take many forms. Some funded Start-Up Grant projects are examples of technical innovation, such as the creation of a new piece of software to address a need in the humanities. In other cases, the innovation does not consist of creating new technology; instead the project makes use of an existing technology in a new way. For example, an applicant might take existing software used for some other purpose and demonstrate how it could be effectively used for humanities research. In still other cases, the innovation does not pertain to the technology per se; instead it is the project collaboration that is innovative, as with projects that bring together creative individuals from both technical and nontechnical fields to address a longstanding humanities issue in a new way. True innovation is rare, and reasonable people can disagree as to what constitutes innovation. The applicant therefore needs to make a strong case for the innovative character of the proposed project.
Who will read my grant application?
A variety of individuals will read your application, including peer reviewers, NEH staff, and members of the NEH National Council on the Humanities.
We therefore strongly emphasize that you should write your application so that readers without technical knowledge can understand it. We realize that your project may be technical in nature and that part of the application may have to address complex technological issues. But particularly in your abstract and in the first portion of your narrative, you should write for a general audience that is familiar with the humanities, but may have no specific knowledge of technology or of your project’s relation to the humanities. In these sections of the application you should make a “big picture” case for your project’s contribution to the humanities.
Let us draw your attention to a few key sentences in the program guidelines that address this issue:
- Section IV, the description of the proposal abstract:
Provide a one-paragraph (up to one thousand characters) abstract written for a nonspecialist audience, clearly explaining the project’s intellectual significance for the humanities, its principal activities, and its expected results.
- Section IV, the description of the narrative:
Provide a clear and concise explanation—comprehensible to a general audience—of the start-up activities and the ultimate project results, noting their value to scholars, students, and general audiences in the humanities.
- Section V, the first evaluation criterion:
The intellectual significance of the project for the humanities, including its potential to enhance research, teaching and learning in the humanities.
As these sentences indicate, your proposal must explain the significance of your project to the humanities, in terms that will be comprehensible to readers without technical knowledge. Your application will be read by many individuals with different backgrounds, from different disciplines, with varying degrees of familiarity with the methodologies used in digital scholarship. You must therefore make a case to this broad audience. Consider, for example, how you might make a case for your project if you were describing it to your provost, dean, or college president. Alternatively, consider how you might briefly describe the project to a new acquaintance outside your field. Your abstract and narrative should be crafted to appeal to individuals like these.
While this advice is specifically tailored to applications for Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants, it applies more broadly to applications for all NEH grants. Still, applications for digital projects in particular must be written to ensure that readers without technical knowledge can understand the significance of the project to the humanities.
May my institution apply for more than one Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant at a time?
Yes. Institutions may apply for and hold more than one of these grants, but project directors may submit only one application to this program at a time.
I would like to send a draft proposal for NEH staff comment. How do I do that?
While it is not mandatory to submit a draft, applicants are encouraged to do so. In order to guarantee NEH review of the draft, it should reach NEH at least six weeks before the deadline. Draft proposals should be submitted via e-mail to odh@neh.gov.
Should the project participants and our institution include letters of commitment as part of our application or should they be sent separately?
Letters of commitment should be included with the application.
Whom should I ask to provide letters of support?
Letters of support should come from persons who can objectively assess the importance of the project to the humanities. These persons should comment on the importance of the project’s subject area, the proposed methodology, or the technical plan. They should not be project participants. Also, the letters should be sent to the project director (not separately to NEH) and submitted with the application.
I would like to develop a new Web site to present material on a humanities topic. Is that the right sort of project for a Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant?
Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants are conceived as grants to support the initial phases of projects offering innovative approaches to the use of emerging technologies in the humanities. Projects that simply use existing technologies to make new materials more readily available are therefore unlikely to receive Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants. If, however, your proposed work involves the early stages in the development of new Web technologies or new methods of indexing or incorporating metadata into an online collection, you would appear to have a stronger case for receiving a Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant.
The project that I have in mind seems compatible with the guidelines for another NEH grant program, but it also seems to fit as a Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant. To which program should I apply?
Generally, projects that can be supported through other NEH grant programs and that seek to achieve the goals of the other grant programs probably should be addressed to those programs. However, no rules preclude an application from being submitted to more than one NEH grant program, so long as the application is appropriately modified to fit the guidelines of the different programs. If you are not certain to which grant program you should apply, contact NEH program staff for guidance. The staff for Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants can be reached at odh@neh.gov.
I am not interested in developing new technologies, but I would like to use a Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant to begin a program to support new uses of existing technologies or to develop training programs in digital humanities tools for students, teachers, or researchers. Would those activities be supportable as Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants?
Yes.
Does NEH limit the amount of indirect costs that can be included as part of an institutional application for a Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant?
No. An institution may charge its negotiated rate in the application budget. Note, though, that the indirect costs are included in the amount awarded for the grant; they are not added to the grant amount. (For example, the maximum award in this program is $50,000. This means that NEH would support no more than $50,000 of a project’s costs, including the indirect as well as the direct project costs.)
Is cost sharing required for a Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant?
Cost sharing is not required for Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants. However, applicants are welcome to use cost sharing for start-up projects in which the total budget exceeds the NEH grant limit. Cost sharing consists of the cash contributions made to a project by the applicant and third parties, as well as third party in-kind contributions, such as donated services and goods.
I am an independent scholar. Am I eligible to apply for a Digital Humanities Start-up Grant as an individual?
Individual applicants are not eligible to apply for Digital Humanities Start-up Grants. Applications are accepted only when submitted by eligible institutions.
On the Supplementary Cover Sheet for NEH Grant Programs, question number 1 asks for the project director's major field of study. Our project director’s field of study is not, however, listed in the drop-down menu. What should we choose?
If none of the listed fields seems to fit your project director’s major field of study, please choose “Interdisciplinary.”