Scholarly Editions and Translations

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Division of Research is accepting applications for the Scholarly Editions and Translations program. The purpose of this program supports collaborative teams who edit, annotate, and translate foundational humanities texts that are vital to generating new scholarship but are not available in adequate editions or translations. 

This year's competition is limited to projects on American history and culture or Western civilization. Applications must focus on topics in the history and culture of the United States in any period from the Colonial Era to the present, or topics in Western civilization from antiquity to the present.

The program supports continuous full-time or part-time activities during a period of performance of one to three years. At least two scholars must work collaboratively on the project. Typical project expenses include salary for editorial and research activities, travel to collections to verify source material, and consultant fees for translation, editorial work, and the implementation of a digital edition. Editions and translations may be print, digital, or a combination of both, but all editions and translations must contain additional and new scholarly material such as introductions, annotations, and critical apparatus.

The Scholarly Editions and Translations program includes three funding levels: Planning, Implementation, and Chairman's Special Awards. You are not required to obtain a Planning award prior to applying for an Implementation award. You must, however, have been previously funded with an Implementation award in this program to apply for a Chairman's Special Award.

Opportunities for International Collaboration with Israel:

Collaborative projects involving U.S.-based scholars working closely with scholars in Israel should read about new international collaboration opportunities that could provide additional funding.  More information about these Partnership Opportunity Notifications (PONs) can be found here.

What's New for 2026-2027:

• Topics for this year's competition will be limited to American history and culture or Western civilization.
• The submission deadline has been moved up to September 16, 2026, from early December.
• Instructions for completing program-specific application documents (Notice of Funding Opportunity) and instructions for completing all required Grants.gov forms (General Application Guide for Awards to Organizations) have been separated into two documents.
• The samples attachment (required) and appendices attachment (optional) are limited to 20 pages each.
• We will not be accepting draft applications for review this year.
• Learn about NEH's implementation of recent Executive Orders.