ACLS Project Grants for HBCU Faculty

ACLS Project Grants for HBCU Faculty is sponsored by American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). These grants support early-stage project design and smaller-scale project development for faculty at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Funds can be used for activities such as course releases, travel to collections or conferences, research and editorial support, and child- or eldercare support.

An additional institutional grant of $2,500 is provided to the awardee's home institution to support humanities programming or infrastructure. While not exclusively for theological education, faculty in religious studies or related humanities fields at HBCUs could apply for projects related to their research.

The American Council of Learned Societies invites applications for the HBCU Faculty Fellowships and Grants program. HBCUs are a vital component of the higher education ecosystem with a distinguished record of teaching and research contributions to the academic humanities and interpretive social sciences.

This program supports the work of faculty at HBCUs by providing awards that attend to the specific teaching, research, and service contexts of their institutions. The program is the result of an extensive series of listening sessions and consultations with HBCU faculty and administrators from a wide range of institutions about opportunities and needs for research support at their colleges and universities.

Based on these consultations, the program will offer two types of awards to advance HBCU faculty scholarship: 1. Grants of up to $10,000 for research project development, with a grant term of 12 to 15 months. 2.

Fellowships of up to $50,000 to support more sustained time and engagement with a significant research project, with an award term of 15 to 27 months. For the 2026-2027 competition cycle, ACLS will award up to 12 grants and up to eight fellowships. Both award types allow applicants to structure their budgets and workplans in ways that best fit their research goals and professional commitments.

Applicants are encouraged to select the award type that best matches the goals, scale, and stage of their proposed projects. Award funds may be used for anything that is necessary to advance the project. In addition to the fellowship or grant stipend, each awardee will have access to networking and mentorship opportunities that align with their scholarly goals and institutional circumstances.

For both fellowships and grants, each award also comes with an additional institutional grant of $2,500 to the awardee’s home institution to support humanities programming or infrastructure. Applicants who advance to the finalist round of review but are ultimately unsuccessful will be invited to participate in proposal development workshops.

#### **Application Support** * **Informational webinar** about the application process, competition guidelines, and best practices (recording will be available in late July).

Thursday, July 30th (12:00om-1:00pm Eastern) Friday, August 21 (11:00am-12:00pm Eastern) Wednesday, September 16 (4:00pm-5:00pm Eastern) Tuesday, October 13 (10:00am-11:00am Eastern) Monday, November 2 (2:00pm-3:00pm Eastern) * **Feedback on draft applications**: ACLS will provide feedback on draft applications (complete or incomplete drafts of proposals, workplans, and budgets) submitted by**August 31, 2026**.

Unfortunately, we cannot provide feedback on drafts received after this date. Submit a draft application through our online portal. These resources are intended to support applicants’ final submission to the grant or fellowship competitions and to create pathways for scholars at HBCUs to national and international research funding.

Note that participation in these optional resources is not required to apply for a grant or fellowship, nor does it guarantee the receipt of a fellowship or grant award. ACLS believes that humanistic scholarship benefits from inclusivity of voices, narratives, and subjects that have historically been underrepresented or under-studied in academia.

We encourage applications from all eligible faculty, and we value projects that demonstrate thoughtful engagement with communities and topics that have been historically underrepresented or under-studied in the academy. ACLS values projects that expand the range of scholarly perspectives and methodologies, and that are responsive to a wide array of human experiences, cultures, and histories.

We also believe that institutional diversity enhances the scholarly enterprise, and we encourage applications from all types of institutions represented among HBCUs, including both two-year and four-year degree-granting institutions. Projects must only be submitted to one of the year’s competitions, for fellowships or grants; the same project cannot be submitted for both awards. Receive program and application updates