NEH Summer Stipends 2019 for 2020

NEH has announced the NEH Summer Stipends Competition (for Summer 2020 projects).

This ORSP page was uptated on July 12, 2019, to:
- Clarify General vs. Special Interest Topic Areas, and
- Provide Links to NEH Webinar Slides and Recording

The Summer Stipends program aims to stimulate new research in the humanities and its publication by supporting the work of individual scholars doing research or writing. 

Summer Stipends support continuous full time work of individuals on two-month humanities projects. Recipients usually produce articles, monographs, books, digital materials, archaeological site reports, translations, editions, or other scholarly resources.

Award Information

Summer Stipends provide $6,000 to individuals (not their institutions) for two consecutive months of full-time research and writing, and may be used to support recipients’ compensation, travel, and other costs related to the proposed scholarly research.  Recipients must work full-time on their projects for these two months and may hold other non-NEH sources of support (for example, sabbaticals and supplementary funding) or grants for the same project during the Summer Stipend period of performance. Summer Stipends normally support work carried out during the summer months, but arrangements can be made for other times of the year.  

UM Supplementary Funding

UM institutional nominees selected by NEH for Stipends for the summer of 2020 are eligible for an additional $6,000 in UM funding—typically as summer salary and fringe benefits. Funds for this supplement will be contributed in equal parts by the College of Liberal Arts and ORSP.  Individual applicants—those not nominated by UM—are not eligible for this supplement.

Institutional Nominations

Full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty must be nominated by their institutions, which are limited to two nominations per year. Jason Hale, Director of Research Development (jghale@olemiss.edu), coordinates UM’s internal selection process for limited submission opportunities. However, UM’s Nominating Official is Josh Gladden, Vice Chancellor for Research and Sponsored Programs (jgladden@olemiss.edu).

Eligible UM tenured or tenure-track faculty who would like to be considered for these nominations should prepare an internal application and submit it to ORSP via the InfoReady Review Portal by the date indicated below. Pre-proposals will be evaluated in keeping with the ORSP Standard Procedure on Limited Submissions, and UM’s two nominees will be chosen from among the internal applications received.

Eligibility for Institutional Nominations
UM full-time faculty holding tenured or tenure-track positions who:

  • have completed their formal education, and
  • are U.S. citizens or foreign nationals who have been living in the United States or its jurisdictions for at least the three years immediately preceding the application.


Key Dates

2019

June 19                                    This ORSP Announcement
June 26                                    NEH Webinar (12:00 p.m. CDT)
Aug 5                                       Internal Applications due at  https://olemiss.infoready4.com.
Aug 6 – Aug 18                        Internal review process conducted
Aug 19                                     UM selections completed; Nominees announced
Aug 20 – Sep 24                      Selected nominees improve and finalize full proposals
                                                            (including registering at Grants.gov)

Sep 11                                     Suggested last date for applicant Grants.gov registration.
Sep 25, 10:59 p.m. CDT         Proposals due to NEH; Nominees submit via grants.gov
Oct 4 (approximately)             NEH requests reference letters and nomination confirmation
Oct 17                                     Letters of rec. & confirmation of nomination due to NEH

2020

March 2020                            NEH Selections announced
April 30                                   Last day for fellows to submit Summer Stipends Acceptance Form
May 1                                     Earliest fellowship/project start date

Instructions for UM Pre-Proposals

To be considered as one of UM’s two institutional applicants, prospective nominees should upload an internal application to the ORSP InfoReady Review Portal. 

The internal pre-application will consist of one PDF containing the following items, in order, exactly following the format described in the Notice of Funding Opportunity:

  1. A 3-page project narrative
  2. A 1-page bibliography  
  3. A 2-page resume
  4. An optional Appendix

An addition, for the UM pre-application only, individuals previously nominated by UM for these fellowships but not selected by NEH, and who are proposing the same or a very similar project as before, should also include:

  1. The NEH Reviewers Comments on that previous application, and
  2. The applicant’s plan for adapting this application based on those Reviewer Comments

NEH Areas of Interest

General Interest: According to the 1965 National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act, “The term ‘humanities‘ includes, but is not limited to, the study of the following: language, both modern and classical; linguistics; literature; history; jurisprudence; philosophy; archaeology; comparative religion; ethics; the history, criticism and theory of the arts; those aspects of social sciences which have humanistic content and employ humanistic methods; and the study and application of the humanities to the human environment with particular attention to reflecting our diverse heritage, traditions, and history and to the relevance of the humanities to the current conditions of national life.”

Specific Interst: While this year’s Notice of Funding Opportunity suggests several speicific special areas of interest, the it says that the program will “give equal consideration to all applications in accordance the program’s review criteria, regardless of whether the respond to these areas of interest." 

Individual Applications (not managed by UM or ORSP)

The following types of individuals may apply without an institutional nomination.

  • independent scholars not affiliated with an institution of higher education
  • non-tenure-track faculty at institutions of higher education
  • staff (non-faculty) not teaching during the academic year preceding the award
  • emeritus faculty

Program Statistics

In recent years, the Summer Stipends program received an average of 834 applications per year. The program made an average of 77 awards per year, for a funding ratio of 9 percent.

Links and Other Information

UM DUNS number:                             067713560

UM Congressional District:                 1st Congressional District of Mississippi

NEH Summer Stipends Program:        https://www.neh.gov/grants/research/summer-stipends

FAQ: https://www.neh.gov/sites/default/files/inline-files/summer-stipends-faqs%202019_0.pdf

Webinar Sign Up (June 26, 12:00 pm CDT): https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/1458701585409869067

Notice of Funding Opportunity:        

https://www.neh.gov/sites/default/files/inline-files/summer-stipends-NOFO-sep-25-2019_0.pdf

UM Nominating Official:
Josh Gladden, Vice Chancellor for Research and Sponsored Programs, jgladden@olemiss.edu