In this roundtable session, representatives of seven private organizations that offer grant and fellowship opportunities relevant to the study of history and other humanities disciplines will provide current information about external sources of support available to faculty, students, and independent scholars. Panelists will offer tips and advice on formulating and submitting compelling proposals for funding. In keeping with this year’s theme, “Loyalties,” they will also describe the ways in which their organizations engage with historians and other scholars throughout, and beyond, the duration of funded projects to foster meaningful and long-lasting intellectual communities.

This panel will introduce the session participants to different funding organizations with active programs relevant to the humanities. These include private foundations (Whiting Foundation), professional organizations serving history and the humanities (the American Council of Learned Societies and the Council on Library and Information Resources), and independent nonprofits dedicated to research (National Humanities Center, Science History Institute, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, and The Institute for Advanced Study). Panelists will outline their organizations’ different missions and review processes, describing how their unique grant and fellowships programs are developed and evaluated on an ongoing basis, then they will describe their programs’ distinct approaches to engaging with funded constituents. Each will provide examples of previously funded research, education, or public humanities projects that exemplify current trends in interdisciplinary and inter-professional collaboration to advance research, teaching, and learning.

After giving a brief description of their organization and its programs, each panelist will address questions about how their organizations solicit and assess proposals for funding, how they engage with fellowship and grant recipients, and what new developments are affecting their organizations’ priorities with respect to support for humanities scholarship.

The session moderators will also allow significant time for questions from conference participants. Participants will leave the session with a clearer picture of the landscape of funding opportunities available to historians and an improved understanding of how to navigate this terrain.

Participants in this roundtable are submitting a parallel proposal to the MLA Program Committee.