The Digital Projects for the Public program supports projects that interpret and analyze humanities content in primarily digital platforms and formats, such as websites, mobile applications and tours, interactive touch screens and kiosks, games, and virtual environments. All projects should demonstrate the potential to attract a broad, general, nonspecialist audience, either online or in person at venues such as museums, libraries, or other cultural institutions.
All Digital Projects for the Public must:
- provide public audiences with structured analysis that deepens public understanding of significant humanities ideas
- incorporate sound humanities scholarship
- involve humanities scholars in all phases of development and production
- include appropriate digital media professionals
- reach a broad public audience through a realistic plan for development, marketing, and distribution
- demonstrate the capacity for sustainability
The Digital Projects for the Public program includes three funding categories: Discovery (to collaborate on preliminary research), Prototyping (to design or create prototypes), and Production (to produce the final version of the project).
Discovery:
The Discovery category supports the exploratory stages of a digital project, bringing together humanities scholars, content experts, and digital media experts to determine which approaches a project might take. The Discovery phase should emphasize collaboration among these groups to identify the combination of content and platform that will most effectively communicate the humanities ideas to public audiences. To be successful at this level, the project team should have a solid grasp of the content and collections with which they will work and be looking for a platform, or the team should have chosen a subject and a platform and be looking to assess and interpret the humanities content. In either case, the project team must include humanities content experts and media experts. Projects intended for classroom use must also include an education consultant.
In addition to consultations with humanities scholars and digital media experts, activities may include:
- content research and narrative development
- consultation with educational or curriculum consultants
- platform research and selection
- identification or digitization of production assets
- preliminary design
- audience evaluation
- user experience mockups
- storyboarding
The output of Discovery awards is a written design document that details fundamental aspects of the project such as the content, format, technical specifications, budget, work plan, intended audience, and learning objectives. The design document serves as a roadmap for further work on the project.
Prototyping
The Prototyping category supports the creation of a proof-of-concept prototype. Applicants must submit a design document that describes the platform, user interface, and design, and the ways in which you will convey the project's central humanities ideas.
Activities may include:
- refinement of humanities content
- consultation with humanities scholars, content experts, educational consultants, and digital media experts
- finalization of the platform
- scripting
- creation or digitization of audiovisual assets that will engage public audiences
- user interface and backend development
- testing (including early launches) and de-bugging
- final design
- user testing and audience evaluation
- other activities that will advance the project towards the production stage
The output of a prototyping awards is a digital prototype that explains the key digital features and humanities content of the project and demonstrates the project's technical feasibility and design through screenshots, videos, mockups, or other illustrations.
Production
The Production category supports the production and distribution of humanities projects that have a primarily digital format. Applicants must submit a design document and a prototype that demonstrate a solid command of the humanities content and scholarship related to the subject. The prototype must also show how the narrative, audiovisual, and interactive elements bolster an audience's understanding of the project's humanities ideas.
Activities may include:
- ongoing consultation with scholars
- additional research and writing
- fine-tuning the hardware, software, and platform
- the final design, production, and distribution of digital media projects
- finalization of the script and audiovisual assets
- securing rights and licensing fees for audiovisual assets
- production of complementary components such as museum displays
- publication of complementary materials, such as catalogs or curriculum guides
- publicity, outreach activities, and public programs
- user testing and project evaluation
The output of a Production award is a completed project that has been (or will be) distributed for widespread public use. NEH strongly encourages partnerships with organizations and individuals who can assist in distributing projects to the public.
NEH Areas of Interest: NEH is especially interested in supporting projects that advance humanities-related work in the following areas. NEH will give all applications equal consideration in accordance with the program's review criteria. NEH encourages projects that include Native American organizations and communities as applicants and project partners.
- American Tapestry: Weaving Together Past, Present, and Future: American Tapestry: Weaving Together Past, Present, and Future is a wide-ranging special initiative at NEH that leverages the humanities to tackle some of the most pressing challenges of our time: strengthening our democracy, advancing equity for all, and addressing our changing climate. The initiative encourages humanities projects that elevate the role of civics in schools and public programs, advance knowledge of the country's history and political institutions, and examine threats to its democratic principles. The initiative also encourages projects that explore the untold stories of historically underrepresented groups and build capacity at cultural and educational institutions to benefit underserved communities. Finally, the initiative welcomes projects that promote research into the historical roots and cultural effects of climate change and support the cultural and educational sectors in building climate resilience. By supporting humanities projects that align with these three themes – strengthening our democracy, advancing equity for all, and addressing our changing climate – the American Tapestry initiative seeks to tell our country's history in all its complexity and diversity.
- United We Stand: Connecting Through Culture: Hate must have no safe harbor in America – especially when that hate fuels the kind of violence we've seen from Oak Creek to Pittsburgh, from El Paso to Poway, and from Atlanta to Buffalo. When ordinary Americans cannot participate in the basic activities of everyday life – such as shopping at the grocery store or praying at their house of worship – without the fear of being targeted and killed for who they are, our security as well as democracy are at risk. In coordination with the White House United We Stand” Summit in September 2022, NEH launched a new initiative titled United We Stand: Connecting Through Culture that uses the humanities to combat hate-motivated violence and promote civic engagement, social cohesion, and cross-cultural understanding. As a part of this initiative, NEH encourages humanities projects that further our understanding of the nation's racial, ethnic, gender, and religious diversity; examine the sources of hate and intolerance in the United States; and explore progress towards greater inclusiveness. NEH especially welcomes projects that explore the Muslim American and/or the Jewish American experience, including the history of Islamophobia and/or antisemitism.
- NEH's Support for the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative: As a part of NEH's partnership with the Department of the Interior on the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, NEH encourages projects that further public understanding and knowledge of the Federal Indian boarding school system. From 1819 through the 1970s the government of the United States operated a system of schools for Native American, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children premised on a policy of coerced cultural assimilation. Native children were forcibly separated from their families and sent to attend federal Indian boarding schools, where they were frequently subject to harsh treatment and abuse. A number of these students died, and others never returned to their families and communities. Many were also deprived of their cultural inheritance. NEH encourages projects that document and explore the history of the federal Indian boarding schools as well as projects that contribute to Native and Indigenous cultural and language revitalization.
List of recent Discovery grants - https://apps.neh.gov/publicquery/main.aspx?q=1&a=0&n=0&o=0&ot=0&k=0&f=0&s=0&cd=0&p=1&pv=288&d=0&at=0&y=0&prd=0&cov=0&prz=0&wp=0&sp=0&ca=0&arp=0&ob=year&or=DESC
List of recent Prototyping grants - https://apps.neh.gov/PublicQuery/main.aspx?q=1&a=0&n=0&o=0&k=0&f=0&s=0&cd=0&p=1&pv=291&d=0&y=0&prd=0&cov=0&prz=0&wp=0&pg=0&ob=year&or=DESC
List of recent Production grants - https://apps.neh.gov/PublicQuery/main.aspx?q=1&a=0&n=0&o=0&k=0&f=0&s=0&cd=0&p=1&pv=292&d=0&y=0&prd=0&cov=0&prz=0&wp=0&pg=0&ob=year&or=DESC
NEH seeks proposals that explore a range of interpretive possibilities. Competitive proposals include collaboration with multiple scholars offering diverse perspectives. Projects that depend on input from a single scholar are not competitive. NEH also welcomes applications for digital projects that enrich the users' experience and engagement with a larger project. For example, if a request is for a mobile experience that would operate within a museum or would work in conjunction with a film, explain how this element will enhance the audience's humanities learning experience. The digital component must enhance the project and not serve merely as promotion for it. Identify particular communities and groups, including students, to whom a project may have particular appeal. Projects intended for K-12 students should include community partners to extend the project's impact beyond the classroom. Because the development and production of the project's humanities content and technical design should be undertaken by a team of experts, NEH discourages the use of students, and especially undergraduates, in the development and production of a project's humanities content and technical design. Projects intended as a classroom exercise, e.g., constructed by students over the course of a semester or academic year for course credit, are not competitive. NEH encourages audience evaluation throughout all stages of a project. Evaluation could include testing of the project's concept, approach, and key components.