The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) encourages international collaboration?!
For the first time, the NEH has *multiple* targeted, collaborative international opportunities with other countries. Japan, Germany, Israel, Latin America, Africa, and Greece . . . really??!!
You may be scratching your heads (I am, too).
The NEH gutted many programs and let go of many program officers (some of whom we have snatched up, fyi).
In an era of extreme isolationism, punishing tariffs, and outright aggression, it might seem . . . confusing (?!) that the NEH is emphasizing international collaboration.
But, in a sense, it is in line with the current administration’s outlook: Collaboration takes the financial burden off the US and shares it with other countries that wish to leverage US knowledge and expertise.
What are the ramifications? There are a few:
1. It used to be difficult to pay foreign nationals living in other countries with federal funds. Now, it’s easier to work with international collaborators (a good thing, in our view).
2. As funds will be split between collaborators, there will be fewer funds for US researchers (both good and bad, depending on how you feel about splitting the award).
3. As another funding organization is involved, turnaround time on awards may be longer (that’s just annoying).
Have they made it easy? Of course not! The NEH website buries the informational PDFs for each country in the text description, so read carefully. They do link the NEH opportunities—but to understand how the opportunity “speaks to” the new international collaboration, you have to go back to said PDF.
Therefore, it is key to click the live PDF for each country on the NEH website. See comments for links. And, happy collaborating with your international partners!!
#humanities #highereducation #grants