Next Generation Humanities PhD Grants

In recent years, research published by Humanities Indicators, among others, has revealed that humanities PhDs pursue careers in many different professions—both inside and outside academia. Yet most humanities PhD programs in the United States still prepare students primarily for tenure-track professor positions at colleges and universities. The increasing shortage of such positions has changed students’ expected career outcomes. NEH therefore hopes to assist universities in devising a new model of doctoral education, which can both transform the understanding of what it means to be a humanities scholar and promote the integration of the humanities in the public sphere.

Next Generation Humanities PhD Planning Grants support universities in preparing to institute wide-ranging changes in humanities doctoral programs. Humanities knowledge and methods can make an even more substantial impact on society if students are able to translate what they learn in doctoral programs into a multitude of careers. Next Generation PhD Planning Grants are designed to bring together various important constituencies to discuss and strategize, and then to produce plans that will transform scholarly preparation in the humanities at the doctoral level. Students will be prepared to undertake various kinds of careers, and humanities PhD programs will increase their relevance for the twenty-first century.

Next Generation Humanities PhD Implementation Grants support universities in instituting wide-ranging changes in humanities doctoral programs. Humanities knowledge and methods can make an even more substantial impact on society if students are able to translate what they learn in doctoral programs into a multitude of careers. Next Generation PhD Implementation Grants are designed to produce plans that will transform scholarly preparation in the humanities at the doctoral level. Students will be prepared to undertake various kinds of careers, and humanities PhD programs will increase their relevance for the twenty-first century.

NEH will support activities specific to each institution’s needs: these may include (but are not limited to) multi-departmental collaboration, transformations in curricula, modifications in stipend structures, altered formats for dissertations, commitment to collection of alumni career information and outcomes, partnerships with non-university entities, as well as a pledge to encourage doctoral students to explore and prepare for multiple career trajectories. NEH intends the Implementation Grants program to promote best practices on the part of its awardee institutions, and thereby to establish a new model for graduate education in the humanities.

Grantee institutions must provide funds (either their own funds or funds raised from nonfederal third parties) equal to the grant funds released by NEH.