AMERICAN COUNCIL OF LEARNED SOCIETIES (ACLS) Fellowships

Application Deadline:  September 29, 2021.

ACLS invites research proposals from scholars in all disciplines of the humanities and related social sciences. Given the disproportionate effect the current economic downturn has had on emerging, independent, and untenured scholars, ACLS will continue in the 2021-22 competition year to offer these fellowships solely to untenured scholars who have earned the PhD within eight years of the application deadline. ACLS welcomes applications from scholars without faculty appointments and scholars off the tenure track.

In 2021-22, the program will award up to 60 fellowships. ACLS invites applications from scholars pursuing research on topics grounded in any time period, world region, or humanistic methodology. ACLS aims to select fellows who are broadly representative of the variety of humanistic scholarship across all fields of study. We also believe that diversity enhances scholarship and seek to recognize academic excellence from all sectors of higher education and beyond. In ACLS’s peer review, funding packages, and engagement with fellows, we aspire to enact our values of equity and inclusion.

The ultimate goal of the project should be a major piece of scholarly work by the applicant, which can take the form of a monograph, articles, digital publication(s), critical edition, or other scholarly resources. This program does not fund works of fiction (e.g., novels or films), textbooks, straightforward translation, or pedagogical projects.

ACLS Fellowships are intended to help scholars devote six to twelve continuous months to full-time research and writing. The awards are portable and are tenable at any appropriate site for research. An ACLS Fellowship may be held concurrently with other fellowships and grants and sabbatical pay. For fellows with full-time academic appointments, the total amount of support, including the ACLS Fellowship, may not exceed the candidate’s academic year salary. Fellows without full-time academic contracts may teach up to one course during the fellowship term. Tenure of the fellowship may begin no earlier than July 1, 2022 and no later than July 1, 2023. The fellowship term must conclude no later than December 31, 2023.

The fellowship stipend is set at $60,000 for a 12-month fellowship. Awards of shorter duration will be prorated at $5,000 per month, with the minimum award set at $30,000. Independent scholars, adjunct faculty, and faculty with teaching-intensive appointments will receive an award supplement of $3,000 for research support, access to manuscript development workshops, or learned society conference attendance.

Eligibility

Applicants must:

1. Applicants must be US citizens, permanent residents, Indigenous individuals residing in the United States through rights associated with the Jay Treaty of 1794, DACA recipients, asylees, refugees, or individuals granted Temporary Protected Status in the United States.
2. have a PhD officially conferred between September 30, 2013 and September 29, 2021.
3. not hold a tenured faculty position.

Benefits

• Maximum award: $60,000
• Tenure: six to twelve consecutive months devoted to full-time research and/or writing, to be initiated between July 1, 2022 and July 1, 2023, and to be completed no later than December 31, 2023

Application Procedure

Peer reviewers are asked to be mindful of ACLS’s commitment to inclusive excellence, and of how equity and diversity are integral components of merit. We are especially interested in supporting scholars who hail from diverse institutions and groups that are underrepresented in the academy. Reviewers in this program are asked to evaluate all eligible proposals on the following five criteria:

1. The potential of the project to advance the field or fields of study in which it is proposed and make an original and significant contribution to knowledge.
2. The quality and innovativeness of the proposal with regard to its methodology, scope, theoretical framework, and grounding in the relevant scholarly literature. ACLS welcomes applications that challenge scholarly orthodoxy.
3. The feasibility of the project and the likelihood that the applicant will execute the work within the proposed time frame.
4. The scholarly record and career trajectory of the applicant, taking into account relative advantages and constraints on resources for the proposed project and over the course of the applicant’s career.
5. The potential of the award to advance ACLS’s commitment to inclusive excellence, which is based on the principle that humanistic scholarship benefits from institutional diversity and the inclusion of voices that have been historically underrepresented in the academy due to race, gender, class and other aspects of identity.

Official Website: AMERICAN COUNCIL OF LEARNED SOCIETIES (ACLS) Fellowships