Institutes for Higher Education Faculty Institutes for K-12 Educators

Overview

This notice solicits applications for Institutes for Higher Education Faculty and Institutes for K-12 Educators that will take place in 2026.

NEH-funded institutes are professional development programs that convene higher education faculty or K-12 educators from across the nation to deepen their understanding of significant topics in the humanities and enrich their capacity for effective scholarship and teaching.

Most fundamentally, institutes:
•    allow immersive study of humanities topics significant to humanities study and teaching
•    foster new fields of study and/or revitalize existing areas of inquiry
•    strengthen humanities teaching and learning in participants’ professional settings
•    build lasting communities that foster participants’ intellectual and professional collaboration

Institutes should:
•    situate the proposed topic in significant humanities texts and related resources
•    explore multiple, rigorous approaches to the topic
•    consider how the topic engages recent developments in the scholarship, teaching, and curricula of participants’ professional settings
•    provide opportunities for deep and collaborative engagement with the topic
•    model excellent scholarship, teaching, and collegial dialogue
•    reach the widest possible audience for whom the topic is relevant

Project Design
Institutes run from one to four weeks and may adopt a variety of schedules and formats to suit the needs of the topic and audience. One week is equivalent to five or six days of structured study.

You must select one of three formats for the institute:
•    Residential: All participants attend the duration of the program at the host site.
•    Virtual: All participants attend the duration of the program using an online platform. This can include synchronous and asynchronous sessions.
•    Combined: All participants attend a portion of the program virtually and a portion of the program at the host site. Virtual and residential sessions occur at different times, but all participants attend the same sessions.

Project Audience
You must design your institute and your recruitment plan for a national audience of participants from across humanities disciplines and professions who work in either higher education or K-12 education.

Institutes for Higher Education Faculty
You must design your Institutes for Higher Education Faculty program for a diverse group of 25-36 higher education faculty participants drawn from across the nation.
•    You must target a national audience of full- or part-time faculty who teach undergraduate students and/or whose work in the humanities lies outside undergraduate teaching but who demonstrate that their participation will advance project goals and enhance their own professional work.
•    You must identify a primary audience for your institute by subject area(s). You may target a specific audience by, for instance, requiring foreign language proficiency, but the primary audience should be large enough to yield a complete participant group.
•    You must reserve twenty percent of available spaces for non-tenured/non-tenure track faculty members.
•    You must reserve ten percent of available spaces for advanced graduate students, defined as those who have reached candidacy in a doctoral program or are in the final year of a terminal degree program.

Institutes for K-12 Educators
You must design your Institutes for K-12 Educators program for a diverse group of 25-36 K-12 educator participants drawn from across the nation.
•    You must target a national audience of full- or part-time K-12 educators who teach in public, charter, independent, and religiously affiliated schools, or as home schooling educators.
•    You may admit museum educators and other K-12 school personnel who demonstrate that participation will advance project goals and enhance their own professional work.
•    You must identify a primary audience for your institute by grade level(s) and subject area(s). You may target a specific audience by, for instance, requiring foreign language proficiency, but the primary audience should be large enough to yield a complete participant group.
•    You must reserve twenty percent of available spaces for early-career educators (those who have been teaching for five years or fewer).

Expected Output:
•    Curriculum Project; 
•    Professional Development for Teachers or Faculty;
•    Workshop

You may request up to $220,000, depending on the duration of your proposed institute.  
One week -  $120,000
Two weeks  - $175,000
Three weeks - $200,000 
Four weeks - $220,000

What’s New for 2025:
Previously Funded Projects:  
•    Clarification regarding the definition of a returning project: You are considered a returning applicant if your project director or co-project directors have been previously awarded under the Institutes, Landmarks, or Seminar program.  
Accessibility:
•    Clarification regarding project design: For combined-format projects, virtual and residential sessions occur at different times, but all participants attend in the same format simultaneously unless modifications are needed for accessibility accommodations.
•    Clarification regarding institutional resources: Host institutions must provide reasonable accommodations for project team members, participants, presenters, and institution staff by ensuring facilities, program activities, and sites are accessible to a diverse group of people.