Grant Details

The Research and Development program supports projects that address major challenges in preserving or providing access to humanities collections and resources. These challenges include the need to find better ways to preserve materials of critical importance to the nation's cultural heritage—from fragile artifacts and manuscripts to analog recordings and digital assets subject to technological obsolescence—and to develop advanced modes of organizing, searching, discovering, and using such materials.

This program supports projects at all stages of development, from early planning and standalone studies to advanced implementation. Research and Development projects contribute to the evolving and expanding body of knowledge for heritage practitioners, and for that reason, outcomes may take many forms. Projects may produce any combination of laboratory datasets, guidelines for standards, open access software tools, workflow and equipment specifications, widely used metadata schema, publications, online resources, or other products.

Research and Development supports work on the entire range of humanities collection types including, but not limited to, moving image and sound recordings, archaeological artifacts, born-digital and time-based media, rare books and manuscripts, archival records, material culture, and art. Applicants must demonstrate how advances in preservation and access through a Research and Development project would benefit the cultural heritage community by supporting humanities research, teaching, or public programming.

Research and Development offers two funding tiers in order to address projects at all stages of development and implementation.

Tier I: Planning, Basic Research, or Modifications. Tier I grants support the following activities:

• Planning and preliminary work for large-scale research and development projects. Proposals must identify one or more project deliverable, such as the creation of an action agenda, work plan, published report, draft standard, or software prototype, that prepares the project team for subsequent stages of work.
• Discrete research projects such as case studies or laboratory experiments. Such projects do not need to involve planning or preliminary research for a larger project. Nevertheless, they must address research issues or problems in the cultural heritage field.
• Modifications or updates to established or emerging standards, methodologies, tools and equipment, or workflows.

Tier II: Advanced Implementation Tier II grants support projects at a more advanced stage of implementation for the following activities:

• Development of standards, practices, methodologies, or workflows for preserving and creating access to humanities collections.
• Applied research addressing preservation and access issues concerning humanities collections.
• Topic or area study in heritage preservation and access conducted using convenings, surveys, collaborative research, and other qualitative and quantitative modes of investigation. Possible deliverables could include publications, online resources, guidelines, and agenda for collective action. Applicants are encouraged to involve multi-institutional and community stakeholders working to achieve substantial national or international impact.

Applications for Advanced Implementation must demonstrate significant planning or prior research in one or more relevant fields. Successful completion of a Tier I project is not a prerequisite for applying for a Tier II award. Applicants seeking Advanced Implementation grants are required to provide an additional one- to two-page dissemination plan as an appendix.