Higher education faculty, staff and students are challenging teaching and learning paradigms through innovative connections with other colleges, universities, research labs, performing arts centers and an immense array of other resources over advanced networks.

Digital Startup Grants

Funding Agency: National Endowment for the Humanities
Website: http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/digitalhumanitiesstartup.html

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) invite applications to the Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants program. This program is designed to encourage innovations in the digital humanities. By awarding relatively small grants to support the planning stages, NEH aims to encourage the development of projects that are particularly innovative and promise to benefit the humanities.

Digital Humanities Challenge Grants

Funding Agency: National Endowment for the Humanities
Website: http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/challenge.html

NEH challenge grants are capacity-building grants, intended to help institutions and organizations secure long-term improvements in and support for their humanities programs and resources. Grants may be used to establish or enhance endowments or spend-down funds (that is, funds that are invested, with both the income and the principal being expended over a defined period of years) that generate expendable earnings to support ongoing program activities. Funds may also be used for one-time capital expenditures (such as construction and renovation, purchase of equipment, and acquisitions) that bring long-term benefits to the institution and to the humanities more broadly.

Digging Into the Data Challenge

Funding Agencies: National Endowment for the Humanities, National Science Foundation, Joint Information Systems Committee, Sciences and Humanities Research Council
Website: http://www.diggingintodata.org/

The Digging into Data Challenge is an international grant competition sponsored by four leading research agencies, the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) from the United Kingdom, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) from the United States, the National Science Foundation (NSF) from the United States, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) from Canada.

What is the "challenge" we speak of?  The idea behind the Digging into Data Challenge is to answer the question "what do you do with a million books?"  Or a million pages of newspaper? Or a million photographs of artwork?  That is, how does the notion of scale affect humanities and social science research? Now that scholars have access to huge repositories of digitized data -- far more than they could read in a lifetime -- what does that mean for research?

Applicants will form international teams from at least two of the participating countries.  Winning teams will receive grants from two or more of the funding agencies and, one year later, will be invited to show off their work at a special conference. Our hope is that these projects will serve as exemplars to the field.

America’s Media Makers: Development Grants

Funding Agency: National Endowment for the Humanities
Website: http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/AmMediaMakers_development.html

Grants for America’s Media Makers support media projects that explore significant events, figures, or developments in the humanities in creative and new ways. America’s Media Makers projects promote active exploration and engagement for broad public audiences in history, literature, archaeology, art history, comparative religion, philosophy, and other fields of the humanities. NEH supports the development of humanities content and interactivity that excites, informs, and stirs thoughtful reflection. To that end, NEH urges applicants to consider more than one format for presenting humanities ideas to the public. Grants for America’s Media Makers should encourage audiences to engage with the humanities, promote dialogue and discussion, and foster learning among people of all ages. NEH offers two categories of grants for media projects, Development Grants and Production Grants.

Community Connect Grant Program

Funding Agency: United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Rural Utilities Service (RUS)
Website: http://www.usda.gov/rus/telecom/commconnect.htm

The purpose of the Community Connect Grant Program is to provide financial assistance in the form of grants to eligible applicants that will provide currently unserved areas, on a "community-oriented connectivity" basis, with broadband transmission service that fosters economic growth and delivers enhanced educational, health care, and public safety services.  The Community Connect Grant Program stipulates that any recipient must provide a "Community Center with at least ten (10) Computer Access Points within the proposed Service Area, and make Broadband Transmission service available therein, free of all charges to users for at least 2 years."

Just over $13.4 million is available for grants.  The USDA RUS has set a minimum grant amount of $50,000 and a maximum grant amount of $1 million for FY 2009.  There is a 15% matching fund (cash or in-kind) requirement.  Though in past the RUS has featured a Community Connect Grant Program, Community Connect grants for FY 2009 cannot be renewed.