Schmidt Sciences Opens $800K Grants for AI-Humanities Research
March 10, 2026 · 2 min read
Arthur Griffin
Schmidt Sciences has opened the second round of its Humanities and Artificial Intelligence Virtual Institute (HAVI), offering grants of up to $800,000 for research teams applying AI to archaeology, history, literature, and other humanities disciplines. Applications close March 13, 2026 — just three days away.
The program builds on a $11 million inaugural round that funded 23 teams across institutions including Harvard, Princeton, UC Berkeley, and the University of Kentucky.
Where AI Meets Ancient Scrolls
HAVI is not a typical AI grant. The program requires co-principal investigators from both humanities and computer science, reflecting Schmidt Sciences' conviction that the most productive AI applications emerge from genuine interdisciplinary collaboration rather than technologists imposing tools on domain experts.
First-round projects span a remarkable range: AI models that answer questions from the perspective of a particular historical period, analysis of how camera movement and soundtracks shape film narrative, tracing the influence of trade routes on art and literature, detecting buried archaeological sites from satellite imagery, and virtually unrolling ancient scrolls to read previously illegible manuscripts.
What Makes a Competitive Application
Schmidt Sciences wants projects that advance both fields simultaneously — generating new humanities insights while pushing the boundaries of what AI systems can do. A strong proposal addresses research questions from both domains, not just applying off-the-shelf models to digitized texts.
Budgets can reach $800,000, a substantial increase from typical humanities grants that rarely exceed $100,000. The funding level signals that Schmidt expects teams to build significant technical infrastructure, not just run existing models.
A Rare Window for Humanities Researchers
With federal humanities funding under pressure — the National Endowment for the Humanities faces continued budget uncertainty — private philanthropy like HAVI represents an increasingly important lifeline for digital humanities research. The $800,000 ceiling puts these grants in a category typically reserved for STEM disciplines.
Researchers at the intersection of AI and humanities can explore additional funding opportunities through Granted, which tracks both federal and philanthropic grants across research disciplines.
The application portal is accessible via schmidtsciences.org.