Research and Development
Division of Preservation and Access
Grant Snapshot
Maximum award amount
Tier II provides awards up to $350,000
Open to
Period of performance
Application available
Optional Draft due
Application due
Expected notification date
Project start date
Grants.gov will be down for system updates on Saturday May 15 and Sunday, May 16. The system will be available again no later than Monday, May 17 at 12:00 a.m.
The Research and Development program supports projects that address major challenges in preserving or providing access to humanities collections and resources. These challenges include the need to find better ways to preserve materials of critical importance to the nation’s cultural heritage—from fragile artifacts and manuscripts to analog recordings and digital assets subject to technological obsolescence—and to develop advanced modes of organizing, searching, discovering, and using such materials.
This program supports projects at all stages of development, from early planning and stand-alone studies, to advanced implementation. Research and Development projects contribute to the evolving and expanding body of knowledge for heritage practitioners, and for that reason, outcomes may take many forms. Projects may produce any combination of laboratory datasets, guidelines for standards, open access software tools, workflow and equipment specifications, widely used metadata schema, or other products.
Research and Development supports work on the entire range of humanities collection types including, but not limited to, moving image and sound recordings, archaeological artifacts, born digital and time-based media, rare books and manuscripts, archival records, material culture, and art. Applicants must demonstrate how advances in preservation and access through a Research and Development project would benefit the cultural heritage community by supporting humanities research, teaching, or public programming.
Research and Development projects are encouraged to address one or more of the following areas of special interest:
- Preserving our audiovisual and digital heritage
- Conserving our material past
- Protecting our cultural heritage
- Serving under-represented communities
For more information about the program, you may refer to the pre-recorded webinar. Captions are provided.
Begin by reading the Notice of Funding Opportunity. The files are linked below. You want to ensure you understand all the expectations and restrictions for projects delivered under this program and are prepared to write the most effective application.
Application Materials
Research and Development Notice of Funding Opportunity, 2021 (PDF)
Research and Development Grants.gov application package
Program Resources
Research and Development Grant Program Notice of Funding Opportunity Webinar (YouTube)
Research and Development Frequently Asked Questions, 2021 (PDF)
List of recently funded awards in this program
Sample Application Narratives
Tier II Project: Alexandria Archive, Data Curation as Scholarship in Archaeology
Tier II Project: Bay Area Video Coalition, Quality Control Tools for Video Preservation
Tier II Project: Cornell University, Preservation and Access Framework for Digital Art Objects
Tier II Project: New York University, Implementing Traditional Knowledge Labels
To apply for this grant, you will be need to be registered for a D-U-N-S® number, with the System for Awards Management (SAM), and with Grants.gov. If you have registered with these systems previously, confirm that your registrations are current and up to date. If you fail to allow ample time to complete registration with SAM or Grants.gov, you will not be eligible for a deadline extension or waiver of the online electronic submission requirement.
Be sure to follow the instructions outlined in the guidelines and in the Grants.gov instructions.
You will receive a confirmation from Grants.gov when you've successfully submitted your application.
After you submit your application, Grants.gov will send you up to five e-mail messages confirming receipt of your application. These messages represent different stages in the application acceptance process. You should verify that you have received all confirmation messages. Please note that email filters may send these messages to your spam or junk folder.
