Scholarly Editions 2026 NOFO.pdf

Notice of Funding Opportunity

Scholarly Editions and Translations

Funding Opportunity Number: 20260916-RQ

Funding Opportunity Type: New

Federal Assistance Listing Number: 45.040

Application Deadline: September 16, 2026

Ensure your SAM.gov and Grants.gov registrations and passwords are current.

It may take several weeks to register with SAM.gov and Grants.gov.

NEH will not grant deadline extensions for lack of registration.

Division of Research Email: editions@neh.gov Telephone: 202-606-8200 Telecommunications Relay Service: 7-1-1

OMB control number 3136-0134, expiration date October 31, 2027 mailto:editions@neh.gov

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Executive Summary The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Division of Research is accepting applications for the Scholarly Editions and Translations program. The purpose of this program is to support collaborative teams who edit, annotate, and translate foundational humanities texts that are vital to generating new scholarship but are not available in adequate editions or translations. This year’s competition is limited to projects on American history and culture or Western civilization.

This Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) provides application information unique to the Scholarly Editions and Translations program, including program-specific requirements, allowable activities, review criteria, and formatting instructions. Refer to NEH’s General Application Guide for Awards to Organizations for standard instructions that apply to all NEH funding programs for organizations. Together, this NOFO and the general guidelines provide all the information you need to complete and submit your application to NEH.

Funding Opportunity Title Scholarly Editions and Translations Funding Opportunity Number 20260916-RQ Federal Assistance Listing Number 45.040 Application Deadline September 16, 2026, 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time Anticipated Award Announcement July 2027 Anticipated Funding Approximately $5,000,000 Estimated Number and Type of Awards Approximately 20 grants Award Amounts Planning: Up to $65,000

Implementation: Up to $100,000 per year in outright funds, plus an additional $50,000 in matching funds, for a maximum of $150,000 per year and a maximum of $450,000 per award.

Chairman’s Special Awards in American History and Culture: up to $1,000,000 in outright and matching funds.

See B. Federal Award Information.

Cost Sharing/Match Required No, unless you request federal matching funds Period of Performance Planning: One to two years

Implementation: One to three years Chairman’s Special Awards: Five years

Projects must start between November 1, 2027, and August 1, 2028.

https://www.neh.gov/sites/default/files/NEH%20General%20Application%20Guide%2002-24-2026.pdf

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Eligible Applicants • nonprofit organizations recognized as tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code

• accredited institutions of higher education (public or nonprofit)

• state and local governments and their agencies

• federally recognized Native American Tribal governments

See C. Eligibility Information for additional information.

Program Resource Page https://www.neh.gov/grants/research/scholarly-editions-and-translations-grants

Pre-Application Webinar You will find a pre-recorded webinar on the NEH program resource page.

Published June 30, 2026 https://www.neh.gov/grants/research/scholarly-https://www.neh.gov/grants/research/scholarly-editions-and-translations-grants

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Table of Contents A. Program Description

1. Purpose

2. Funding Restrictions

3. Background

B. Federal Award Information

1. Type of Application and Award

2. Summary of Funding

C. Eligibility Information

1. Eligible Applicants

2. Other Eligibility Information

D. Application Contents

1. Application Component Table

2. Application Elements

3. Budget Instructions Specific to This Program

E. Application Review Information

1. Review Criteria

2. Review Process

3. Intergovernmental Review

F. Submission Information

1. Application Package

2. Submission Instructions

G. Award Notices

1. Anticipated Announcement and Award Dates

2. Federal Award Documents

3. Administrative and National Policy Requirements Specific to This Program

H. Annual and Final Reporting

I. Agency Information

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A. Program Description

1. Purpose The Scholarly Editions and Translations program supports collaborative teams who edit, annotate, and translate foundational humanities texts that are vital to generating new scholarship but are not available in adequate editions or translations. Since the program’s inception in 1966, the NEH has funded editions and translations of some of the most significant historical, literary, philosophical, and music texts.

This year’s competition will accept only editions and translations projects in American history and culture or Western civilization. Applications must focus on topics in the history and culture of the United States in any period from the Colonial Era to the present, or topics in Western civilization from antiquity to the present.

The program supports continuous full-time or part-time activities during a period of performance of one to three years. At least two scholars must work collaboratively on the project. Typical project expenses include salary for editorial and research activities, travel to collections to verify source material, and consultant fees for translation, editorial work, and the implementation of a digital edition. Editions and translations may be print, digital, or a combination of both, but all editions and translations must contain additional and new scholarly material such as introductions, annotations, and critical apparatus.

You may propose an edition of a text in the original language (English or another language) or a translation into English, but you may not propose translations into any language other than English.

All projects should embody the best practices in editing and translating, such as those recommended by the Association for Documentary Editing (ADE) or the Modern Language Association (MLA) Committee on Scholarly Editions. Editions and translations must contain scholarly apparatus appropriate to their subject matter and format, including introductions and annotations that explain form, transmission, and the historical and intellectual contexts of the texts. For translation projects, you must explain your theory and method of translation for the proposed work.

NEH strives to make the products of its awards available to the broadest possible audience by providing ready and easy access to its grant products to scholars, educators, students, and the American public. All other considerations being equal, NEH gives preference to projects that provide free access to the public (see Public Access at NEH).

International partnership opportunities NEH welcomes international collaboration with the significant involvement of scholars at U.S.

institutions. See NEH’s Partnership Opportunity Notifications for sources of additional support from external partners.

Funding categories The Scholarly Editions and Translations program includes three funding levels: Planning, Implementation, and Chairman’s Special Awards. You are not required to obtain a Planning https://www.documentaryediting.org/wordpress/ http://www.mla.org/cse_guidelines http://www.mla.org/cse_guidelines https://www.neh.gov/publicaccess https://www.neh.gov/initiatives/international-opportunities

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award prior to applying for an Implementation award. Applicants whose projects were previously funded in this program must apply for an Implementation award.

Planning Planning awards, up to $65,000 for one to two years, help scholars prepare to create a scholarly edition or translation. Eligible activities at this stage include determining the scope of the corpus, collecting documents and supporting texts, establishing editorial and translation policies, evaluating target audiences and determining their needs, selecting collaborators, and planning for dissemination, digital access, and sustainability.

Planning awards may not be used to prepare an NEH Implementation award application or an application to any other funding opportunity.

Implementation Implementation awards, up to $300,000 in outright funds and $150,000 in matching funds for one to three years, support scholars producing a scholarly edition or translation. Eligible activities at this stage include manuscript collection; transcription, collation, and translation of original and previously published versions of the materials; verification of transcriptions and translations; research and writing of introductions; preparing annotations and other scholarly apparatus; traveling to collections to verify source material; final proofing of print-ready material;

creating volume indexes; digitally encoding texts; and implementing a digital edition.

Chairman’s Special Awards in American History and Culture The NEH may issue rare Chairman’s Special Awards of up to $1,000,000 for projects of exceptional significance, audience reach, and complexity. These awards must provide scholarly access to the writings of an important figure from American history or culture. Only prior recipients of successful Implementation awards may apply for a Chairman’s Special Award.

Applicants must make the case that the award will increase the productivity of the project, substantially move it toward completion, and reach especially large audiences. These awards support all Implementation-level activities. Eligible applications that are not selected at this level will be considered for an Implementation award. Chairman’s Special Awards applications that are not focused on an important figure from American history or culture will be declared ineligible and not reviewed.

Program outputs and outcomes Program outputs are the tangible products that result from the award.

The outputs of a successful Planning award may include, but are not limited to:

• editorial policies and workflow procedures

• reports from planning meetings

• reports from documents searches

• memoranda of understanding from archives, libraries, and other documentary repositories

• copyright permissions

• prototype or other early-stage versions of planned editions and translations

• digital sustainability and accessibility plans

• letters of commitment from editorial collaborators and advisory board members

• agreements with digital collaborators

• publication contract

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The outputs of a successful Implementation award and Chairman’s Special award may include, but are not limited to:

• print editions and translations with scholarly introductions, annotations, and other critical apparatus

• digital editions and translations with scholarly introductions, annotations, and other scholarly apparatus

• most outputs listed as planning grant outputs that are necessary to be undertaken on an ongoing basis

The outcome of a successful Scholarly Editions and Translations award is improved access to foundational texts that are vital to generating new humanities scholarship. Editions and translations will demonstrate best practices in modern documentary editing and translation and promote greater intellectual access to the texts through scholarly introductions and annotations.

You must describe your outputs and how they would support the project outcomes in the application Attachment 2: Narrative. If you receive an award, NEH will assess your performance by comparing the outputs proposed in the application against those reported in your performance reports. See H. Annual and Final Reporting.

2. Funding Restrictions You may not use funds made under this notice for the following purposes:

Restricted activities:

• promotion of a particular political, religious, or ideological point of view

• promotion of gender ideology

• promotion of discriminatory equity ideology

• support for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) or diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) initiatives or activities

• environmental justice initiatives or activities

• advocacy of a particular program of social or political action

• support of specific public policies or legislation

• lobbying

Programmatic exclusions:

• development of tools, including digital tools, as a significant project and budgetary focus

• publication of texts in periodicals or scholarly journals as the primary means of dissemination

• translation of a text into a language other than English

• editions or translations without the creation of a new critical apparatus and scholarly material

• preparation or publication of textbooks, bibliographies, descriptive catalogs, dictionaries, encyclopedias, or databases

• preparation of anthologies or sourcebooks

• editions or translations of texts by living authors

• use of undergraduate students for translation

• projects that fall outside of the humanities

• the creation or performance of art

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• creative writing, autobiographies, memoirs, and creative nonfiction

• policy studies

• social science research that does not address humanistic questions and/or utilize humanistic methods

Unallowable costs:

• travel costs and fees to attend regularly occurring professional meetings

• funding conferences or other meetings for the purpose of dissemination or promotion of the completed edition

• purchase of computers and peripherals

• purchase of equipment

• press subventions

• costs for activities performed by federal entities or personnel

• fiscal agent and fiscal sponsor fees

• fiscal agent activities alone without substantive involvement (e.g., proposal submissions, reporting, financial oversight, or maintaining IRS status)

See 2 CFR 200 Subpart E - Cost Principles for other unallowable costs.

If your application includes unallowable activities or programmatic exclusions, NEH may deem it to be nonresponsive and reject it.

3. Background NEH offers this funding opportunity under the authority of 20 U.S.C. § 956. Awards are subject to 2 CFR Part 200 Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards, and the General Terms and Conditions for Awards to Organizations.

Under Section 3(a) of the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965, as amended, “The term ‘humanities’ includes, but is not limited to, the study of the following:

language, both modern and classical; linguistics; literature; history; jurisprudence; philosophy;

archaeology; comparative religion; ethics; the history, criticism, and theory of the arts; those aspects of the social sciences which have humanistic content and employ humanistic methods;

and the study and application of the humanities to the human environment with particular attention to reflecting our diverse heritage, traditions, and history and to the relevance of the humanities to the current conditions of national life.”

Use the Funded Projects Query Form to find examples of NEH-supported projects.

Learn more about NEH.

B. Federal Award Information

1. Type of Application and Award NEH seeks new applications in response to this notice. NEH will provide funding in the form of grants.

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/subtitle-A/chapter-II/part-200#subpart-E https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?hl=false&edition=prelim&req=granuleid%3AUSC-prelim-title20-section956 https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=236bb02f01d2e050f7a5b60c88a67066&mc=true&node=pt2.1.200&rgn=div5 https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=236bb02f01d2e050f7a5b60c88a67066&mc=true&node=pt2.1.200&rgn=div5 https://www.neh.gov/general-terms-and-conditions-grants-after-oct-2024 https://www.neh.gov/general-terms-and-conditions-grants-after-oct-2024 https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-1998-title20/pdf/USCODE-1998-title20-chap26-subchapI-sec952.pdf https://securegrants.neh.gov/publicquery/main.aspx https://www.neh.gov/about

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2. Summary of Funding Award Amounts

Funding Category Period of Performance Award Amount Planning one to two years up to $65,000 in outright funds Implementation one to three years up to $450,000 (up to $100,000 per year in outright funds, plus an additional $50,000 per year in matching funds)

Chairman’s Special Award five years (60 months) up to $1,000,000 (up to $500,000 may be matching funds)

You may request up to the maximum award amount for your funding category, inclusive of both direct and indirect costs. Refer to NEH’s General Application Guide for Awards to Organizations for information about indirect costs.

If your period of performance includes partial years, you must prorate your request by month.

For example, if your proposed period of performance is 18 months, you may request up to $150,000 in outright funds.

There is no requirement or expectation of requesting matching funds.

NEH anticipates awarding approximately $5,000,000 in total funding to an estimated 20 recipients.

NEH will not determine the funding available each fiscal year until Congress enacts the agency’s final budget. Accordingly, NEH issues this NOFO subject to the availability of appropriated funds, and it does not obligate NEH to make any awards.

Period of Performance The period of performance is the time during which you may incur expenses to carry out the work under the award. It must start on the first day of the month and end on the last day of the month.

• For a Planning project, you may request a period of performance from one to two years.

• For an Implementation project, you may request a period of performance from one to three years.

• For a Chairman’s Special Award, you must request a period of performance of five years. NEH will not consider an application at this level with a period of performance of less than five years.

Your period of performance must start between November 1, 2027, and August 1, 2028.

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Cost Sharing NEH supports projects with outright funds, federal matching funds, or a combination of the two.

Learn about the types of funds NEH offers. Cost sharing refers to project costs that are covered with non-NEH funds. Additional information on cost sharing is available in NEH’s General Application Guide for Awards to Organizations.

NEH does not require cost sharing in this program unless you request federal matching funds.

Peer reviewers will not consider any voluntary cost share in their evaluation of applications.

Federal matching funds At the Implementation stage, you may request up to $50,000 per year in federal matching funds to leverage third-party funding. For a Chairman’s Special Award, you may request up to $100,000 per year in federal matching funds to leverage third-party funding. Funds to satisfy a matching requirement must be from non-federal sources, consistent with the NEH Federal Matching Funds Guidelines. If you request federal matching funds, you must raise third-party non-federal gifts dollar for dollar.

NEH will offer successful applicants federal matching funds, subject to specific regulatory and other conditions. NEH will not release federal matching funds until you meet the conditions of the offer and certify eligible gifts. You must raise and certify all eligible gifts and pledges by six months before the end of the period of performance.

If you are requesting matching funds, consider a period of performance that allows adequate time to raise and certify funds. If you fail to certify required gifts by the deadline and do not request an extension by the end of the offer period, NEH may withdraw the matching funds offer. Additional details are available in the NEH Federal Matching Funds Guidelines.

For multi-year projects, the full amount of federal matching funds may not be available for release in the first year. Typically, NEH distributes federal matching funds on an annual basis over the period of performance.

You must maintain auditable records documenting the source and use of cost share, consistent with 2 CFR § 200.306.

C. Eligibility Information

1. Eligible Applicants To be eligible to apply, your organization must be established in the United States or its jurisdictions as one of the following:

• a nonprofit organization recognized as tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code

• an accredited institution of higher education (public or nonprofit)

• a state or local government or one of their agencies

• a federally recognized Native American Tribal government

Individuals and other organizations, including foreign and for-profit entities, are ineligible.

https://www.neh.gov/grants/manage/types-funding https://www.neh.gov/sites/default/files/NEH%20General%20Application%20Guide%2002-24-2026.pdf https://www.neh.gov/sites/default/files/NEH%20General%20Application%20Guide%2002-24-2026.pdf https://www.neh.gov/grants/manage/federal-matching-funds-guidelines https://www.neh.gov/grants/manage/federal-matching-funds-guidelines https://www.neh.gov/grants/manage/federal-matching-funds-guidelines https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/section-200.306 https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/search-for-tax-exempt-organizations https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/search-for-tax-exempt-organizations https://ope.ed.gov/dapip/#/home https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/01/28/2022-01789/indian-entities-recognized-by-and-eligible-to-receive-services-from-the-united-states-bureau-of

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NEH does not provide financial assistance to foreign institutions or organizations.

NEH does not issue awards to other federal entities. If your project is so closely intertwined with a federal entity that the project takes on characteristics of the federal entity’s own authorized activities, it is ineligible.

The recipient may not function solely as a fiscal agent but should make substantive contributions to the success of the project. Fiscal sponsors applying on behalf of an ineligible organization are not eligible to apply.

2. Other Eligibility Information You may submit multiple applications for separate and distinct projects under this notice. An individual may not serve as project director for multiple proposed projects under this notice.

Designating the project director and codirectors

• All projects must designate one scholar who will serve as the sole project director. This individual must be named as the project director on the SF-424 form and in the narrative.

List all other directors as codirectors.

• An institutional administrator or press representative may be a codirector, but not the project director.

• Applicant institutions may designate a non-affiliated scholar as the project director if that person is a leading scholar in a relevant field of study. If the project director is not employed by the applicant organization, you must have a formal written agreement that specifies an official relationship between the parties even if it does not involve a salary or other form of remuneration.

• Project personnel (including the project director, codirector, or collaborators) do not need to be U.S. citizens or U.S. residents.

• Students currently enrolled in a degree-granting program may not be the project director or a codirector. If an individual has satisfied all the requirements for a degree and is awaiting its conferral, the application must include a letter from the dean of the conferring school attesting that the individual has completed all degree requirements by the application deadline. Include the letter in Attachment 7: Appendices.

• An individual may be designated as the project director on only one application to the Scholarly Editions and Translations program per deadline. An individual may, however, be listed as a codirector on more than one application even if they are listed as a project director on one application.

• Current award recipients may submit another Scholarly Editions and Translations proposal with the same project director while they have an open award, but the open award and pending application may not have overlapping periods of performance.

• Project directors and collaborating scholars of funded applications may not hold concurrent full-time awards from NEH.

• If you designate a project director who is ineligible, NEH will not issue an award until you name and NEH approves a replacement.

You may revise and resubmit an application not selected for funding. Resubmissions must meet the application requirements and review criteria of the current competition.

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If NEH has previously made an award in support of your project, you may apply for a new or subsequent stage of the project, which NEH will assess using the review criteria of the current competition.

If you submit multiple applications for the same project, NEH will accept only your last validated submission prior to the deadline under the applicable Grants.gov funding opportunity.

D. Application Contents You must apply using Grants.gov Workspace or a Grants.gov system-to-system solution. You can find this funding opportunity in Grants.gov under number 20260916-RQ. There is also a link on the program resource page.

See the Application Component Table below to learn what a complete application entails, and the sections following it for information about the content of those components.

See NEH’s General Application Guide for Awards to Organizations for application component designations, page limits, formatting requirements, and submission rules, as well as instructions for the Grants.gov forms in your application package (SF-424 Application for Federal Assistance, Supplementary Cover Sheet for NEH Programs, Project/Performance Site Location(s) Form, Attachments form, lobbying forms, and the Research and Related Budget form and accompanying budget justification).

NEH will not review applications missing any required documents or relevant conditionally required documents.

If you include application elements other than those listed in the table, NEH will reject your application.

If your application exceeds mandatory page limits or deviates from formatting instructions, NEH will reject it.

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1. Application Component Table Application Component File Name Designation Page Limit Attachments 1: Project team team.pdf Required 2 pages 2: Narrative narrative.pdf Required 12 pages 3: Work plan workplan.pdf Required 2 pages 4: Résumés for key personnel resumes.pdf Required 2 pages per résumé (suggested)

5: Bibliography bibliography.pdf Required 5 pages (suggested)

6: Samples samples.pdf Required Up to 20 pages 7: Appendices appendices.pdf Optional Up to 20 pages 8: Table of past productivity productivity.pdf Conditionally

Required 1 to 2 pages (suggested)

9: Subrecipient budget(s) subrecipient.pdf Conditionally required

10: Federally negotiated indirect cost rate agreement agreement.pdf Conditionally

11: Explanation of delinquent federal debt delinquentdebt.pdf Conditionally

Grants.gov Forms SF-424 Application for Federal Assistance - Short Organizational

Required

Supplementary Cover Sheet for NEH Grant Programs

Required

Project/Performance Site(s) Location Form

Required

Research and Related Budget and Budget Justification

Required

Attachments Form Required Certification Regarding Lobbying Conditionally

Standard Form-LLL “Disclosure of Lobbying Activities”

Conditionally

2. Application Elements

Attachment 1: Project team (required) List the members of the project team, surname first. Designate the project director and any codirectors, then group other team members by institutional affiliation. Also include project

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advisors and advisory board members, whether paid or unpaid, if applicable. Include institutional affiliations for all individuals on the list. For those not affiliated with a nonprofit or educational institution, provide occupation and employer, or, if none, list city and state of residence.

The names on this list must match the names mentioned in the Collaborators section of the narrative, as well as those included in the budget. This attachment must not exceed two pages.

Name the file team.pdf.

Attachment 2: Narrative (required) Compose a comprehensive description of your proposed project. Your narrative should be succinct, well organized, and free of technical terms and jargon so that peer reviewers can understand the proposed project. Per the Policy on the Use of Artificial Intelligence for NEH Grant Proposals, you must acknowledge (by use of footnotes or other marginal notations) when you have inserted AI-generated text into your proposal.

You must limit the narrative to 12 single-spaced pages and follow all formatting instructions listed on page 10 of the General Application Guide for Awards to Organizations. Do not include an executive summary, cover page, or table of contents. You may include images, charts, diagrams, footnotes, or endnotes if they fit within the page limit. Name the file narrative.pdf.

Organize your narrative using the following headings. Each section aligns with one or more review criteria NEH will use to evaluate your proposal.

1. Significance and impact (approximately two pages; aligns with review criterion 1) Provide a clear, concise statement about the intellectual significance of the proposed text for humanities scholars; the need for an edition or translation of the material; and the edition’s potential to stimulate new scholarship. If a previous edition or translation exists, discuss the reasons for undertaking a new one. Explain the problems or inadequacies of the earlier editions or translations and how your project would solve the problems or remedy the inadequacies.

Include a paragraph or two that situates the project within some of the existing relevant literature cited in your bibliography and explain how the edition or translation will fill a need for a new edition and advance scholarship on the author, the subject, or related topics.

Describe your project outputs (such as those named in the list above in A.1) and how they support the overall purpose of the Scholarly Editions and Translations program.

For an Editions project that has received previous NEH support at the Implementation level, discuss your edition’s scholarly impact on the humanities in the form of biographies, monographs, articles, edited volumes, conferences, web resources, and any other demonstration of generating new scholarship.

2. History of the project and productivity (approximately two pages; aligns with review criterion 4) Provide a brief history of the project to date. Explain how it began, its progress, and its estimated completion date. Specify how you have selected materials for the edition or translation and how you will gain access to them. If gaining access to the materials requires permissions or poses other challenges, explain how you will address these issues.

https://www.neh.gov/sites/default/files/2024-10/NEH.AI_.Policy-10.23.24.pdf https://www.neh.gov/sites/default/files/2024-10/NEH.AI_.Policy-10.23.24.pdf

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If you are requesting support in this and another NEH program for parts of a larger project, describe the overall design of the project and clearly delineate the specific parts intended for funding. If the larger project will continue after the proposed period of performance, describe the remaining work (including a completion date for the entire project). For long-term projects, provide a provisional plan for overall completion, including milestones with dates.

Projects at the Planning level must include:

• a description of how NEH support will advance the project toward collecting materials for editing and translating, developing editorial policies, establishing the collaborative team, determining a dissemination medium, determining your audience and their needs for the edition, and, for projects with online dissemination, planning for digital sustainability

• an estimated completion date for the entire project, which may extend beyond your proposed period of performance

Projects at the Implementation level must include:

• a list of completed preparations if you have received a previous planning or Implementation award

• highlights of products or publications from the last six years if work on the edition has already begun

• a list of all print or digital products to date that have received previous NEH support and provide a more comprehensive reporting of previously published material in Attachment 7: Appendices.

• the projected number of volumes, pages, or, in the case of digital editions, some measurable unit of the total number of texts, documents, or words you will edit or translate during this period of performance

• an estimated completion date for the entire project, which may extend beyond your proposed period of performance

Projects at the Chairman’s Special Award level must include:

• a justification for requesting a Chairman’s Special Award

• an explanation of how an award at this level will increase editorial productivity and substantially move the project toward completion

• an explanation of how the edition reaches an especially large audience and impacts humanities scholarship in various fields

Scholarly Edition or Translation projects that previously received NEH funding must:

• discuss the project’s progress in preparing editions or translation for publication

• be substantially updated, including a description of the new activities and a strong rationale for new funding

• list key goals (such as the specific volumes or total number of documents) of previous NEH funding; discuss whether the goals were met as compared to the approved work plan, explain the reasons for not meeting previous goals, and describe plans to complete those goals either before or during the next period of performance

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3. Collaborators (approximately two pages; aligns with review criterion 3)

• List and describe the qualifications of the project director, codirectors, and other key collaborators (those named in Attachment 4: Résumés for key personnel), regardless of whether you request NEH funds to support their involvement.

• State time commitments, in percentage of time or hours per week, for the project director and each collaborator. Explain in the budget narrative any time commitments supported by cost sharing or other funding sources.

• If the project includes international collaboration, explain the need for and benefits of involving scholars at non-U.S. institutions. Also see NEH’s Partnership Opportunity Notifications.

• If you plan to hire new personnel with NEH funds, describe the qualifications, skills, and abilities of each position. Describe their duties in Attachment 2: Work plan.

• For collaborators providing technical services, explain how their activities are important for achieving the project’s goals.

• For projects using undergraduate or graduate student workers or unpaid volunteers, discuss the qualifications, skills, and abilities required of those collaborators and why their involvement is necessary to achieve project goals. Explain how your editorial staff will train these workers and how their work will be verified by experienced staff.

Undergraduate students are not permitted to perform translation.

4. Methods and execution (approximately two pages; aligns with review criterion 2) Describe how you will employ editorial and translation best practices, such as those recommended by the Association for Documentary Editing (ADE) or the Modern Language Association (MLA) Committee on Scholarly Editions. Discuss how the translation or edition will contain scholarly apparatus appropriate to the subject matter and format, including introductions and annotations that explain form, transmission, and historical and intellectual contexts of the texts.

• Identify and discuss the text or corpus that serves as the basis of the edition or translation—for example, the original letters or manuscripts and any other published materials that you would use to produce the edition or translation.

• Describe your methods for producing the new edition or translation. Discuss how you will transcribe the text, verify the transcription, and write and research footnotes and other notations.

• Explain how you will deal with errors and variant readings in the original text or other existing editions.

• Describe the guidelines for annotation, introductions, indexes, and other scholarly apparatus. State whether the edition follows MLA, ADE, or another set of professional standards. If it does not, provide a rationale for departing from these standards.

• Describe how your scholarly introductions and explanatory annotations will establish the historical and intellectual contexts of the work(s) and will contribute to a better understanding of the source texts.

• For projects at the Planning stage, discuss how you will decide methodology or standards if they have yet to be determined.

If you are proposing a translation:

For projects at the Planning stage,

• Discuss how you will resolve any undetermined translation methods or practices, how you will determine what will serve as the source text, and how you will select https://www.neh.gov/initiatives/international-opportunities https://www.neh.gov/initiatives/international-opportunities http://www.documentaryediting.org/ http://www.mla.org/cse_guidelines http://www.mla.org/cse_guidelines

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translators for any languages that are not covered by the language competencies of your core collaborators.

For projects at the Implementation stage, including a Chairman’s Special Award,

• Explain the criteria for selecting the text or texts that will serve as the source text for the translation.

• Explain the theory and methods of the translation.

• Explain how you will resolve challenges posed by a translation (including the degree of difficulty of the text).

If you are developing a digital edition or translation:

For projects at the Planning stage,

• Discuss the criteria and process for determining the platforms for digital management and online dissemination, or how you will make these decisions.

• Explain the decisions on platform, software, and sustainability, or how you will make these decisions.

• Discuss how you will design the digital edition with the research needs of your scholarly audience in mind.

• Discuss the criteria and process you will use to find a digital partner, if you have not identified one.

• Identify your project webpage or provide links to any digital mock-ups (a project webpage is encouraged but not required, at the Planning stage).

For projects at the Implementation stage, including a Chairman’s Special Award,

• Explain the reasons for and advantages of producing a digital edition or translation as a means of dissemination.

• Discuss how a digital edition serves the research needs of your scholarly audience.

• Describe the organization and content of the digital edition, providing screenshots of the existing digital edition or mock-ups (with live URLs, when possible) in Attachment 6: Samples.

• Identify the digital platforms you would use and how those platforms would facilitate the project goals for the identified audience. Where appropriate, provide information on pertinent technical standards and best practices, such as Text Encoding Initiative (TEI)-conformant markup, data management, and digital preservation infrastructure and policies.

• Describe the digital partners and their activities. Discuss the methods for enhancing discoverability of the digital resource or content to aid the project’s dissemination.

• Describe how you will maintain, support, and make available the project’s digital results beyond the period of performance. Discuss a realistic timeframe of digital sustainability and how you will achieve it. Provide information on the ability and commitment of the hosting institution to ensure sustained access to collections or digital materials, as well as the project’s financial sustainability.

5. Project goals (approximately one page; aligns with review criterion 4)

• Outline the broad goals for the period of performance, with a focus on outputs such as books, volumes or parts of volumes, total number of documents, or total word count for transcription or translation. Discuss how you will use NEH funds to advance these goals.

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• Refer to Attachment 3: Work plan for your specific plans for each six-month increment for each of the collaborators. Do not duplicate that work plan here.

• For projects at the Planning stage, describe in broad terms each planning activity that will advance the project toward the implementation stage of an editorial project and how you will use NEH funds to accomplish this.

• For a Chairman’s Special Award, discuss how the project will increase productivity and publication frequency, and how the increased funding will expedite the submission for publication of the final volume or set of documents.

6. Final product and dissemination (approximately two pages; aligns with review criterion 5)

• Discuss publication arrangements, publicity plans, estimated prices, and any user costs to access print and/or digital publication. Include pertinent correspondence with a print or digital publisher and other supporting documents in Attachment 7:

Appendices.

• Indicate whether any of the materials are under copyright. Discuss actions you have taken to secure copyright permissions and specific steps you will take to secure permission for publishing and to pay copyright fees, if necessary. Include pertinent correspondence with current rights holders in Attachment 7: Appendices.

• Discuss the media chosen for the final product (printed books, digital materials, or some combination) and the reasons for this choice.

• If you are proposing print volumes, describe the organization and contents of the volumes that explain the basis for regular publication intervals. If you are proposing a digital edition, discuss the content and pacing of digital content releases for each six-month or annual period.

• For projects at the Planning stage, if you have not already decided on a dissemination format, describe how you will decide what format (print, digital, or both) you will use. Identify specific project outputs: for example, guides to editorial policies and workflow procedures, reports from planning meetings, signed copyright permissions contracts, digital sustainability and accessibility plans, letters of commitment or permission, or a publication contract.

If your application requests support for a component of a larger project, describe the whole project and clearly delineate the specific part intended for NEH funding.

This attachment must not exceed 12 pages. Name the file narrative.pdf.

Attachment 3: Work plan (required) Your work plan should reflect the major activities you describe in your narrative, the project dates on your SF-424 Application for Federal Assistance - Short Organizational, and your Research and Related Budget.

Describe the activities that will take place during the period of performance in six-month increments to achieve each of the objectives, preferably in a table. Use a timeline that includes each activity and identifies responsible staff. Explain how outcomes from one activity will carry over into the next. For collaborative projects, discuss the distribution of responsibilities across each partner institution. As appropriate, identify meaningful support and collaboration with key stakeholders in planning, designing, and implementing activities. This attachment must not exceed two pages. Name the file workplan.pdf.

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Attachment 4: Résumés for key personnel (required) Include résumés for key personnel (such as directors, codirectors, collaborating scholars, editors, research assistants, and digital specialists). NEH recommends you limit these to two pages per person. Name the file resumes.pdf.

Attachment 5: Bibliography (required) The bibliography should consist of primary and secondary sources that relate directly to the project. It should include all previously published editions of the text to be edited, or previous translations into English of the text to be translated. Include works that pertain to both the project’s substance and its theoretical or methodological approaches, particularly those that make the case for a new edition or translation, or those that have benefited from editions already completed with NEH funds.

NEH recommends you limit your bibliography to five pages. You may use any standard citation format. Name the file bibliography.pdf.

Attachment 6: Samples (required) Your samples should illustrate the significance of the materials to be edited, show the degree of difficulty of the text, and illustrate the annotation policy. Editorial samples are required at both Planning and Implementation stages and for a Chairman’s Special Award.

You must submit two kinds of samples:

1. Samples of the original materials you will edit or translate. These may be PDFs of the original manuscripts or documents that form the basis of the new edition or translation. For translation projects, you must also provide a legible transcription of the text in the original language to allow for comparison to the translation sample.

2. Samples of the final, edited material you will produce. Include examples of edited transcriptions with representative footnotes or endnotes, and annotations that represent the final print or digital product. For a translation project, include a sample of a completed translation of at least two manuscript pages. For editions of texts in the original language that will not be translated into English, the sample must include a brief English-language summary (about one paragraph) of the material’s content in addition to the sample of the final edited text with example annotation.

Each kind of sample should be at least two pages in length, single-spaced. At a minimum, they should present two facing pages of the final print volume or screen text. If possible, use pages no larger than standard letter (8 ½" x 11”). You may need to reduce the size of images.

You must draw your two required samples from the work for which you are requesting funding, not from work already submitted to a publisher or from a previous application whose plan of work you have already completed.

Samples of digital materials You may submit screenshots of work from your digital edition or a page(s) with live links to your digital edition in the samples attachment. These are optional unless you have received past NEH support for your digital edition.

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For projects at the Planning stage, you may provide website mock-ups or design plans that indicate the status of digital design, or examples of existing digital products that the digital collaborators have produced, preferably for a similar project. Samples of digital content are recommended, but not required, at the Planning stage.

For projects at the Implementation stage and Chairman’s Special Awards producing a digital edition that received previous NEH support, you must provide screenshots of digital content or links to your digital edition. All URLs should be available during the review period, with arrangements for password access if they are not yet public. For projects that have not received an NEH Implementation award, NEH recommends that you provide sample screenshots of your existing digital products or of those that your digital collaborators have produced, preferably from a similar project.

The sample attachment must not exceed 20 pages. Name the file samples.pdf.

Attachment 7: Appendices (optional) If applicable, include the following:

• copyright permissions allowing you to publish the proposed work, unless it is clearly in the public domain

• permissions from archives or other research venues granting you access to original documents where such access might be restricted or limited

• contracts or letters of interest from print or digital publishers

• budget and budget justification for the non-U.S. costs to be funded by the partner organization, for applications responding to NEH’s Partnership Opportunity Notifications

• for project teams that include an individual who is awaiting the conferral of a degree and is serving as the project director or a codirector, a letter from the dean of the conferring school attesting that the individual has completed all degree requirements by the application deadline

• letters of support from the sponsoring institution (and subrecipient institutions) that demonstrate a strong commitment to the project and indicate that the edition or translation contributes to its institutional mission.

• a list of any publications from your project that received previous NEH support, with dates, noting print or digital format, print runs, and usage or sales statistics

Do not include letters of recommendation or assessments of previous applications.

This attachment must not exceed 20 pages. Name the file appendices.pdf.

Attachment 8: Table of past productivity (required if your project received previous NEH support) If you received previous NEH support for this edition or translation as part of a longer, multi-year project, you must provide a table for each 12-month period of the most recent NEH award (or two most recent awards, if applicable, up to six years), comparing in detail the stated goals of the approved work plan with actual accomplishments.

• The first column of the table should contain a description of the proposed activities, tasks, and goals from the approved work plan, including any stated grant outputs in

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specific terms, such as volumes, number of documents, or word counts.

• The second column of the table should indicate whether you completed the activities, tasks, or goals on time. In cases where you made changes or did not complete tasks on time, indicate when you completed (or will complete) them.

NEH recommends you limit this attachment to two pages. Name the file productivity.pdf.

Attachment 9: Subrecipient budget(s) (conditionally required) If your project includes subawards, you must provide a separate Research and Related Budget form and budget justification for each subrecipient.

Name the file subrecipient.pdf.

Attachment 10: Federally negotiated indirect cost rate agreement (conditionally required) If your organization is claiming indirect costs and has a current federally negotiated indirect cost rate…