What this program funds
Summer Stipends support two consecutive months of full-time research and writing on a humanities project — often, but not necessarily, over the summer. The award funds a discrete stage of work: drafting a chapter or article, completing archival research, or finishing revisions. It is the smallest of NEH's individual awards, and reviewers evaluate it accordingly: they want a project where two focused months will produce visible progress.
Eligibility in plain English
- The famous quirk: most faculty teaching full-time must be nominated by their institution, and each institution may put forward only a small number of nominees. Your research office or dean runs an internal competition first.
- Independent scholars, adjuncts, and retired or unaffiliated researchers apply directly — no nomination needed.
- You must be a U.S. citizen or a foreign national with several years of U.S. residency — confirm the exact requirement in the current guidelines.
- No degree is required, and the award cannot support work toward a degree.
What you'll need to submit
- Narrative (about three single-spaced pages) — significance, methods, work plan for the two months, and the project's stage of completion.
- Bibliography (about one page).
- Résumé (brief).
- Two letters of reference, submitted directly by your referees.
- If you're a nominated applicant, your institution's internal nomination happens before any of this reaches NEH.
Tips for this mechanism
- Find your campus's internal deadline now. Internal nomination rounds typically close weeks or months before the NEH deadline, and missing the internal round means waiting a year.
- Scope the work to two months — credibly. A plan to "finish the book" reads as unrealistic; a plan to draft one chapter from already-gathered materials reads as fundable.
- Connect the two months to the larger arc. Reviewers like knowing what the stipend unlocks: what's done, what these two months produce, and what comes next.
Related programs
- NEH Fellowships (six to twelve months for the same kind of work)
- ACLS Fellowships and other private humanities fellowships
- Your institution's internal summer research grants, which often stack well with a Summer Stipend application