Selection criteria for Humanities Institute Faculty Research Grants

1. Peer-reviewed humanities scholarship. Excellence in peer-reviewed humanities scholarship is the primary criterion for awarding grants. Projects that clearly define how they will result in peer-reviewed humanities scholarship will be given preference.
2. Need blind. Need is not to be taken into account, regardless of other grants awarded for the same project or the degree of UM support for the applicant’s work and career. If two projects are of otherwise equal merit according to the primary selection criteria, preference may be given to projects receiving less funding from other sources.
3. Promotion of external grant support. Proposals that clearly identify how a Humanities Institute grant will help the project win larger, external grants will be viewed favorably.
4. Tenure track. Preference will be given to tenure-track UM faculty, regardless of rank.
5. University-wide affiliation. The institutional “home” of faculty applicants is not to be taken into account, regardless of the applicant’s discipline or the number of proposals from any particular department, program, school, or college within the University.
6. No specific topic, theme, issue, or geographic focus will be given preference.
7. Recipients of HI faculty research grants may not simulteneously hold grants from the University Grants Program.

NEH Model

The Humanities Institute grant selection committee may also look to the following criteria given to evaluators of NEH Summer Stipend and Fellowship proposals:

NEH criteria:

The following five criteria (and only these criteria) are to be applied when evaluating the quality of applications:

1. the intellectual significance of the proposed project, including its value to humanities scholars, general audiences, or both;
2. the quality or promise of quality of the applicant as an interpreter of the humanities;
3. the quality of the conception, definition, organization, and description of the project and the applicant’s clarity of expression;
4. the feasibility of the proposed plan of work, including, when appropriate, the soundness of the dissemination and access plans; and
5. the likelihood that the applicant will complete the project.

Note: NEH supports projects at any stage of development

NEH exclusions:

NEH Summer Stipends and Fellowships may not be used for

• projects promoting a particular political, religious, or ideological point of view;
• projects that advocate a particular program of social action;
• specific policy studies;
• the preparation or revision of textbooks;
• curriculum development;
• the development of teaching methods or theories;
• educational or technical impact assessments;
• empirical social science research, unless part of a larger humanities project.

Selection Criteria for Humanities Institute Individual Faculty Research Grants in the Visual and Performing Arts and in Creative Writing

The Humanities Institute welcomes proposals for projects that lead to the production of original works of art in the faculty member’s area of expertise, including visual art in any medium (painting, drawing, photography, film), performance art in any mode (theater, dance, music), and creative writing in any genre.

Projects in theory and criticism of the arts are evaluated according to the criteria for peerreviewed humanities research projects. Proposals in the creative arts that do not lead to traditional peer-reviewed humanities scholarship may be evaluated according to the following criteria:

1. Arts projects that clearly identify how they engage and inform humanities research topics, methods and debates. Does the proposal identify how the project will, in its production and dissemination, directly engage and inform the humanities?
2. Projects that identify a clear plan for the public dissemination of the project in a recognized professional forum in the applicant’s field of expertise.
3. Projects that fit the Humanities Institute’s public programming of grant-winning humanities scholarship presentations. (Note: successful applicants are asked to present their grant-supported work in the Institute’s public lecture series. This may be viewed as an opportunity for the applicant to discuss how the project, and the arts more generally, might inform and impact humanities research).