Civil Rights in America
For Faculty and Graduate Students
Social and political disruptions in the United States are giving rise to new civil rights challenges. Addressing them will require bold new ideas rooted in liberal principles, informed by rigorous research, and positioned to advance both academic discourse and public conversations.
IHS invites applications from scholars whose research or scholarship applies liberal principles to contemporary American civil rights issues. We’re interested in supporting peer-reviewed scholarship—articles, book chapters, and books—as well as shareable data sets. Projects must include plans to disseminate the work to the public in print and multimedia.
Typical grants range from $500 to $5,000, though larger awards may be considered for exceptional projects.
Eligibility & Application Criteria
Eligible
Travel and Research Activities: travel for conference presentations and archival research; research collaboration such as hiring a research assistant.
Data and Research Materials: purchase of datasets; LLM subscriptions for specialized research sources.
Publishing and Dissemination: journal submission fees; book publication expenses such as copyediting or indexing; preparation of research manuscripts.
Ineligible
Living expenses, hardware purchases, retroactive expenses, conference travel without a scheduled presentation, and institutional overhead or indirect costs. If you are unsure whether a specific expense qualifies, please refer to our Funding FAQ or contact us for clarification.
Timeline
The application deadline is November 3, 2026.
Decisions will be announced on December 3, 2026.