Upcoming External Funding Opportunities (September–October 2025)

Upcoming External Funding Opportunities: Open to ALL faculty (full time, term, or affiliated) unless otherwise noted.

• The Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard University is a residential fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute. The program welcomes applications from scholars and artists proposing innovative work that confronts pressing social and policy issues and seeking to engage audiences beyond academia. Applicants may apply as individuals or in groups of two people working on the same project. Applications in humanities, social sciences, and creative arts are due September 11, 2025. Applications in science, engineering, and mathematics are due September 30, 2025.
  
  
• The Fulbright US Scholar Program is the largest fellowship program for US scholars. Emerson faculty have received Fulbright Scholar awards to travel to Austria, Cape Verde, Columbia, Ivory Coast, Japan, and Mexico. The program supports travel abroad typically for 3-6 months, but can be as long as 12 months, usually in collaboration with a host institution abroad. Dr. Tony Pinder, Vice Provost for Internationalization and Equity is Emerson’s Fulbright Liaison. Faculty are encouraged to schedule a meeting with him or his team in advance of an application. Applications are due September 15, 2025.
  
  
• The College Art Association’s Millard Meiss Publication Fund supports the publication of books on all periods and all areas of art history and visual studies. It funds book-length scholarly manuscripts that are under contract for publication by publishers who are institutional members of College Art Association. Applications are due September 15, 2025.
  
  
• The College Art Association’s Wyeth Foundation for American Art Publication Grant supports the publication of books on the art of the United States, Canada, and Mexico. It funds book-length scholarly manuscripts that are under contract for publication by publishers who are institutional members of College Art Association. Applications are due September 15, 2025.
  
  
• The William T. Grant Foundation’s Institutional Challenge Grant supports university-based research institutes, schools, and centers in building sustained research-practice partnerships with public agencies or nonprofit organizations in order to reduce inequality in youth outcomes. This program typically funds large research universities, but any institution with a research institute, school or center that meets the Foundation’s focus areas (inequality reduction, research use), in partnership with external agencies is eligible to apply. Applications are due September 15, 2025.  (Eligibility: full-time faculty ONLY)
  
  
• The Guggenheim Fellowship supports individuals who have achieved notable success in their careers across the creative arts, humanities, sciences, and social sciences. It is designed for mid-career professionals whose work is well-established. Potential Fellows have already made significant contributions to their field and are eager for time and resources that will allow them to further their meaningful work. Applications are due September 16, 2025.
  
  
• Cornell University Society for the Humanities Fellowship supports year-long residential fellowships for faculty who are conducting interdisciplinary research projects exploring the literary, historical, ethical, and political registers of survival. Applications are due September 22, 2025.
  
  
• The ACLS Fellowship supports 6-12 months of full-time research and/or writing on outstanding projects in the humanities and interpretive social sciences. It supports scholars working at all postdoctoral career stages. Applications are due September 25, 2025.
  
  
• The American Association of University Women’s American Postdoctoral Research Leave Fellowship funds women in academia to pursue independent research over the course of a year. It is open to applicants in all fields of study, though those engaged in science, technology, engineering, and math fields, or those researching gender issues, are especially encouraged to apply. Applications are due September 30, 2025.
  
  
• The Stanford Humanities Center Fellowships for External Faculty is a residential fellowship at Stanford that supports research in the traditional and emergent disciplines of the humanities and the interpretive social sciences. (Creative arts projects are not eligible.) Applications are due October 1, 2025.
  
  
• The National Humanities Center Residential Fellowship offers faculty time and space to write and research in an in-person community of other humanities researchers. In addition to all fields of the humanities, the Center accepts applications from scholars in the natural and social sciences, the arts, the professions, and public life who are engaged in humanistic projects. Applications are due October 2, 2025.
  
  
• The Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia University offers the on-site Society of Fellows SOF Fellowship for early-career scholars (PhD received within the past 4 years) in the humanities and humanistic social sciences to spend an academic year at Columbia and be part of a vibrant cross-disciplinary community. Applications are due on October 6, 2025.
  
  
• The Burroughs Wellcome Fund’s Climate Change and Human Health Seed Grants fund small projects that promote growth of new connections between scholars, practitioners, educators, and/or communicators working to understand, spread the word about, and mitigate the impacts of climate change on human health. This call focuses on developing partnerships. Proposals must develop partnerships with other institutions such as non-profits, community organizations, or other academic institutions. Applications are due October 23, 2025.  (Eligibility: Must include a full-time faculty as part of project team)
  
  
  For more fellowship opportunities due this fall, please reference this complete list of Fall 2025 fellowship opportunities .
  
  
• The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation Humanities Program supports humanities programs at organizations and colleges, as well as projects which address the concerns a humanistic education rooted in the great traditions of the past. Programs in history; archaeology; literature; languages, both classical and modern; philosophy; ethics; comparative religion; the history, criticism, and theory of the arts; and those aspects of the social sciences which share the content and methods of humanistic disciplines are eligible to apply.  There are no deadlines for organizational grants.  (Eligibility: full-time faculty ONLY)
  
  
• The Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University offers Flexible Research Grants for Scholars that support research expenses, event support, and course releases. Applications are accepted on a rolling deadline.
  
  
• Open Excellence, The Foundation for Excellence in Mental Health Care offers Outreach and Education Grants that fund researching, writing and publication of articles on improving mental health outcomes in established, edited journals or news outlets. Applications are accepted by invitation only. Please contact ORCS if you are interested in this funder.