Preservation and Access Research and Development Grant
Grant: Preservation and Access Research and Development Grant
Agency: National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)
Division: Preservation and Access
Deadline: May 1, 2013
Description: The Preservation and Access Research and Development grants support 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 and to develop advanced modes of searching, discovering and using such materials.
NEH encourages applications that address three core areas including digital preservation, recorded sound and movie image collections, and preventive conservation. Eligible projects include:
- Development of technical standards, best practices, and tools for preserving and creating access to humanities collections.
- Exploration of more effective scientific and technical methods of preserving humanities collections.
- Development of automated procedures and computational tools to integrate, analyze and repurpose humanities data in disparate online resources.
- Investigation and testing of new ways of providing digital access to humanities materials that are not easily digitized using current methods.
Collaboration is at the heart of this NEH program. Projects that present advanced models of collaboration, especially among humanities professionals, and other technical experts are welcome.
Fit for public broadcasting: Stations are strongly encouraged to partner with a humanities organization for this program. The focus on digitizing collections including recorded sound and movie image collections is a good fit for stations. Examples of previously funded projects include the creation of digital libraries and preservation of analog sound recordings by converting them into digital form.
Examples of Funded projects:
- In 2005, Indiana University received $348,441 for developing and testing a way to preserve analog sound recording by converting them into digital form. Read more about this project.
- In 2005, University of Missouri received $277,294 for a project to digitize 15th Century Latin Printed books.
The abstracts of these projects and others that have been funded can be found on NEH’s website.
Eligibility: U.S. nonprofit organizations are eligible to apply, as well as state and local governmental agencies and federally recognized Indian tribal governments. Collaboration efforts are strongly encouraged.
Anticipated funding: NEH plans to award a maximum of $350,000 for up to three years. Applicants whose projects focus on at least one of the three areas (digital preservation, recorded sound and movie image collections, and preventive conservation) may request up to $400,000. The number of grants to be awarded is undetermined, but past competitions made and average of three awards per competition. Matching funds of 20 percent are required as part of this program.
How to apply: Applications for this program must be submitted via Grants.gov. Online submission requires registration, a process that usually takes three to five business days but can take as long as four weeks. Be sure to visit Grants.gov and begin registering well in advance of the grant deadline.
Resources:
Program notice
Division of Preservation and Access website
Previously funded projects
