ACLS Awards Final Cycle of Intention Foundry Learned Society Microgrants

The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) is pleased to announce the recipients of the third and final cycle of the Intention Foundry Learned Society Extended Engagement Microgrants.  From the program’s largest applicant pool to date, ACLS will support 15 single-society projects and five multi-society collaborations that address the social, intellectual, and financial precarity scholars currently face. Funded projects range from planning workshops on academic freedom and censorship, to collaborative mentorship models grounded in shared resources, to digital repositories that preserve endangered curriculum.

Previously limited to societies that participated in the Intention Foundry, eligibility was expanded this year to all ACLS member societies in response to dwindling funding opportunities for these types of initiatives. Applicants proposed projects that centered equity, justice, and wellbeing for scholars who disproportionately experience precarity in their fields, while also noting how the projects would inform their societies’ strategic priorities.

“The spirit behind these microgrants has always been to center the needs of those scholars most marginalized in their fields,” noted Keyanah Nurse, Senior Program Officer of Intentional Design for an Equitable Academy (IDEA) Programs and lead of the Intention Foundry. “However, in this final round of funding, we also wanted to support projects that aim to make key cultural interventions in their societies, whether that be through mentoring, public engagement, or advocacy.”

The following societies have been awarded Intention Foundry Learned Society Extended Engagement Microgrants of $10,000–$25,000:

Single Society Awards

• American Folklore Society
• American Political Science Association
• American Society for Environmental History
• American Sociological Association
• Association for Jewish Studies
• Association for Slavic, East European, & Eurasian Studies
• Dance Studies Association
• International Center of Medieval Art
• Latin American Studies Association
• Linguistic Studies Association
• Middle East Studies Association of North America
• National Women’s Studies Association
• Philosophy of Science Association
• Renaissance Society of America
• Rhetoric Society of America

Multi-society Collaborations

• African Studies Association & American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies
• American Antiquarian Society & Bibliographic Society of America
• American Society of Overseas Research & Archaeological Institute of America
• North American Conference on British Studies & North American Victorian Studies Association
• Renaissance Society of America & Sixteenth Century Society

Additionally, 11 societies will receive seed funds of $2,500–$5,000 for the continued development of their proposed projects.

Supported by the Mellon Foundation, the Intention Foundry (IF) was established in 2021 as a series of in-person and virtual workshops in which ACLS member societies collaborated with scholars and higher education administrators to develop and pilot actionable solutions to advance equity, inclusion, and justice in their fields. That first phase, which occurred from 2021-2023, set the foundation for the program’s second phase (2024-2026), which has featured the Learned Society Extended Engagement Microgrants, as well as the Beyond Precarity: Incubators for Secure Futures series, which offers thematically focused virtual and in-person opportunities for scholars to break down institutional and disciplinary silos, learn transformative skills, and imagine future directions for higher education. The program will host its final incubator convening in June 2026.