Experimental Humanities Grants for interdisciplinary projects that integrate the humanities and STEM research through applied technologies are being accepted on a rolling basis for 2025.
What is the Experimental Humanities Initiative?
The Experimental Humanities Initiative was established thanks to a generous grant from the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation. Combining the interpretive, critically reflective tools of the humanities with the collaborative, experimental methods of the sciences, this initiative promotes research that occupies spaces between and across traditional academic boundaries in order to design and develop new approaches, advance new understandings, and build new models of creative community and collaboration among the arts, humanities, and STEM.
Experimental Humanities Grants provide support to collaborative, team-driven interdisciplinary projects that use humanistic principles and inquiry to engage, develop and explore new and emergent technologies. Outcomes must include (a) the advancement of one or more significant scholarly and/or creative products (e.g., a research project, a publication or performance, a software application, a model or database, or a new academic initiative that advances the experimental humanities), and (b) an application for external funding. Both outcomes must be specified clearly in the application.
Available funding
Approximate number of large awards (EH1-L): up to three (Budget Range: $25,000–50,000 per award)
Approximate number of small awards (EH1-S): up to five (Budget Range: $5,000–15,000 per award)
Student engagement
Significant undergraduate student involvement in the scholarly project is required. Faculty applicants are strongly encouraged to collaborate with their students in every stage of the project, including designing the project and writing the proposal. Students (including undergraduate and graduate students) are also encouraged to take initiative, bringing their own project ideas to faculty in order to collaborate on a proposal.
Eligibility requirements
The principal investigator (PI) or one of the co-principal investigators (co-PIs) must be a full-time regular faculty member in the humanities or humanities-related social sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences. Co-PIs and co-investigators may include faculty, staff, and students from other fields within or outside the college. Involvement of collaborators outside CWRU is also encouraged.
Applications are to be submitted through the Grants and Opportunities Management System.
For more information about the Expanding Horizons Initiative, additional grant opportunities, and the Experimental Humanities Grants, visit the Expanding Horizons Initiative webpage.