Research and Development
Funding Agency:
- National Endowment for the Humanities
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.
Research and Development projects are encouraged to address one or more of the following areas of special interest:
- Furthering theory and practice in core heritage collections work
- Preserving audiovisual and digital heritage
- Applying artificial intelligence to collections-based activities
- Conserving the material past
- Protecting cultural heritage
- Stewarding collections by and with underrepresented communities
- Responding to the impact of climate change
Maximum award amount
Tier I provides awards up to $100,000
Tier II provides awards up to $350,000
$1,500,000
May 21, 2024
Contact the Division of Preservation and Access Team
202-606-8570