Indigenous Community Research Fund (ICRF)

Indigenous Community Research Fund (ICRF) is sponsored by American Philosophical Society. The Indigenous Community Research Fund supports individuals or groups of researchers seeking to examine materials at the American Philosophical Society to further Indigenous community-based priorities.

What’s in a Name? (Re)Introducing CNAIR’s Indigenous Community Research Fund! What’s in a Name?

(Re)Introducing CNAIR’s Indigenous Community Research Fund! Ruth Rouvier is the Native American Scholars Initiative Engagement Coordinator at the APS's Library & Museum. A linguist by training...

In addition to making the application process easier, we’ve changed from a competitive application to a more collaborative process that we think will better align with the needs of community-based applicants. We wanted to take the opportunity here to share a bit about the changes we’ve made and what motivated them, and invite you to reach out if you have any questions. What is the Indigenous Community Research Fund?

The ICRF provides funding for travel costs to visit the APS in Philadelphia, and includes extensive consultation with CNAIR staff before, during, and after the visit, with an aim of supporting an ongoing relationship between the APS and the researchers.

The program is designed primarily for Indigenous community members, elders, teachers, knowledge keepers, tribal officials, traditional leaders, museum and archive professionals, and independent scholars. You do not need to have an academic background or any academic affiliation in order to apply!

There are two main changes to the ICRF: A simplified application, requiring just a brief Letter of Interest Removal of the application deadline Instead of a full application, you will now submit a simple ‘Letter of Interest’ (LOI) through a Google Form. You’ll be asked to answer a few questions to help us learn about you, your community, and the kinds of materials in our collections which you are interested in seeing.

Once we receive your LOI, CNAIR staff will review our collections and get in touch with you to discuss how we can support your research. If it seems that a visit to the APS would be productive, we will work with you to figure out the details of the visit and make a funding award. We may also discuss other options, such as sending you free digital scans of materials.

We will accept Letters of Interest on an ongoing basis, and we will continue to make awards throughout the year as long as funds are available. Our annual funding is limited, but it resets at the beginning of each calendar year. This change means you can submit a LOI as soon as you identify a need to access materials in our collection, and we expect to be able to make funding decisions within a couple of months of receiving your LOI.

The purpose of the ICRF is to lower barriers between members of Indigenous communities, and the materials within the collections of the APS. We noticed that in some ways our previous application process was adding unnecessary barriers for applicants, and we wanted to reorient the process around CNAIR’s core values of collaboration and developing institutional and individual relationships.

We think this new consultative and collaborative process supports those values, and allows for greater flexibility to tailor awards to applicants’ specific resources and needs, to promote collaboration and relationship-building as part of the application process, and to better align with Indigenous protocols. We hope you agree, and we look forward to hearing from you!

Header photo: Tom Child Namsgamk’ala and Janet Hanuse, previous Indigenous Community Research Fellows with APS staff. Photo credit Maura Sullivan. Member News Digest — September 10, 2026 American Philosophical Society Ivan Pavlov's (APS 1932) Words of Wisdom American Philosophical Society Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson in “The Athens of North America” Member News Digest — September 3, 2026 American Philosophical Society