FAQ: ACLS Fellowships

ORCID offers a persistent digital identifier (an ORCID iD) that you as an individual scholar own and control, and that distinguishes you from every other researcher. ORCID is being implemented by publishers around the world. In some countries with centralized funding structures, ORCID is in even greater use than it is in the United States. Ten million researchers have created their own ORCIDs.

Learn more about ORCID at https://orcid.org/.

ACLS is joining higher education organizations and funders in encouraging the use of ORCID, which will strengthen academic infrastructure and our relationships with constituencies throughout the academic world. 

The benefits for scholars are numerous: having a persistent ID for applicants and fellows could be helpful to scholars whose scholarly record is attributed differently over time (due to differences between Roman and non-Roman characters or because a scholar’s name changes as a result of marriage, divorce, or transitions in gender identification). Faculty with adjunct or other contract employment also benefit from having a persistent and non-institutionally based identity, since institutions do not follow any standard record-keeping on their public websites. 

In future years, we hope to integrate more of an applicant’s ORCID record data into the application process, saving you time and effort. For now, we strongly recommend an ORCID registration. 

https://orcid.org/

While it only takes a minute to sign up for an account, we advise applicants for ACLS fellowships and grants to register with ORCID before beginning their online applications.

No, not for the purposes of the current ACLS fellowship and grant competitions. You should control your ORCID privacy settings in the way that makes you most comfortable. You can review ORCID’s full privacy policy at https://info.orcid.org/privacy-policy/.

You are only required to register for the ID; how much information you add to your profile is entirely up to you, and the extent of profile content will not affect the review of your application in any way. You can learn more about the benefits of having and using an ORCID profile at https://info.orcid.org/benefits-for-researchers/.

ACLS Fellowships support academic research in all fields of the humanities and related social sciences. In order for social science applications to be eligible, they must employ predominantly humanistic approaches and qualitative/interpretive methodologies. The ultimate goal of the project should be a major piece of scholarly work. 

ACLS Fellowships do not support   

• works of fiction (e.g. novels or films)  

• creative writing, autobiographies, memoirs, and creative nonfiction   

• graphic novels, works of graphic history, or other graphic nonfiction, including historical fiction   

• creation or production of documentary films   

• works of the performing arts (e.g. musical composition, plays) 

• preparation or revision of textbooks 

• projects that are primarily pedagogical in focus, including educational or technical impact assessments   

• translation without significant scholarly interpretation and apparatus 

• dissertation research and research by students enrolled in a doctoral degree program 

• books for children or young adults   

• inventories of collections   

• guidebooks, how-to books, and self-help books   

• projects that fall outside of the humanities or interpretive social sciences 

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

• policy studies 

Yes, absolutely. Applicants for this fellowship are encouraged to apply to as many fellowship and grant programs as are suitable. However, not more than one ACLS or ACLS-joint award may normally be accepted in any one competition year.

No, your PhD degree must have been officially conferred by the application deadline. If you are a doctoral student, you may be eligible for one of ACLS’s dissertation fellowships.

The fellowship is structured so that awardees can take it up either in the academic year following the award or in the calendar year following the award. Beyond that, it cannot be deferred. The award term is six to twelve months, which must be initiated between July 1, 2027, and July 1, 2028. The award term must be concluded by December 31, 2028. Twelve-month fellowships may commence as late as January 1, 2028, and six-month fellowships may commence as late as July 1, 2028. At least six months of the award term must be completed consecutively. Any remaining months may be completed separately, provided they still fall between July 1, 2027, and December 31, 2028, and are taken with at most one interruption. 

If you have published scholarly work on a par with the academic work required by the PhD degree, you may apply. You must have completed a substantial academic project that required a sustained period of research, similar to a dissertation, in the humanities or humanities-related social sciences. 

Please note that we do not consider other terminal degrees, such as a JD, DMA, EdD, in itself to satisfy the PhD equivalency unless it was accompanied by a) a record of scholarly publications that are humanistic in nature (as opposed to case studies or technical legal issues) and b) a substantial academic project that required a sustained period of research (such as a dissertation or book).   

Our application process requires that individual scholars apply and be named as fellows. However, the program accepts applications for research that involve collaboration. As long as all eligibility and application requirements are met, you may propose to take up a fellowship to advance a collaborative project. If you are seeking funding for more than one scholar in a collaborative project, each individual must independently meet the eligibility requirements and submit a separate application specifying their individual contribution. It is important that you clearly outline what contribution you will make to the collaborative project, explain how the work will be divided, and the extent to which each collaborator’s contribution depends on that of the other(s). Indicate how and when the project will be brought to fruition. Peer reviewers will consider each application on its own merits. 

Yes, the fellowship may be taken in conjunction with your sabbatical. The fellowship stipend level may be reduced so that the combination of stipend and sabbatical salary does not exceed the amount of your full academic year salary. 

For fellows with tenure-track academic appointments, the total amount of support they receive from all sources for the fellowship term, including the ACLS Fellowship, may not exceed the candidate’s 2027-2028 academic year salary. For fellows who do not hold tenure-track academic contracts, combined sources of income may not exceed 150% of the ACLS award. 

ACLS requires fellows who hold tenure-track appointments to be released from all teaching and administrative responsibilities during their fellowship terms of six to 12 months. However, fellows who do not hold tenure-track appointments (including independent scholars and contingent faculty) may teach up to one course per semester or perform the equivalent of one course per semester in administrative work during the fellowship term. 

You may revise the content of your previous application, but you will need to start over with a new online application for the current competition year. You cannot reactivate or edit a previous application in our online system. It is not necessary to reference previous submissions in your proposal. 

This will vary, depending on how much work you have done before you begin the application process. Simply filling in the form will probably take an hour, but you will also need to prepare your proposal and supporting documents. We highly recommend that you start the process several weeks before the deadline to get a sense of what is required and start preparing your materials. 

No, you may work on it in multiple sessions, though you will need to save your work after you finish each section of the application. Once you have submitted the application, you cannot work on it again.

The deadline to submit completed applications for this fellowship is 5 PM, Eastern Time, September 17, 2026. 

We suggest you indicate the longer period if you have enough work to fill the time you request. Should a fellowship be awarded, the tenure period can be shortened at that time but it cannot be extended. 

You may estimate the amount you expect to receive or fill in nothing. Enter this amount in the section asking you to list other major funding sources for which you are applying. Should you be offered a fellowship, you will need to provide a specific amount for any other funding you will receive during the fellowship period. 

You may edit your submitted application as long as the deadline has not passed. Once the application deadline has passed, we are unable to accommodate amendments to your application. Your application will be judged as it is at the time of submission.  

Notifications and other correspondence are sent via email from “acls.org” addresses.  

In order to prevent ACLS emails from being blocked, we suggest that you: 

1. Add the relevant ACLS email addresses (e.g., [email protected]  and [email protected]) to your address book or safe senders list. 

1. Check spam or junk mail folder for notifications and correspondence, if you are expecting them. 

1. Check that your institution (“.edu”) or internet service provider (“.com” or “.net” email) is not blocking these emails before they reach you. If this appears to be the case, please contact the appropriate personnel, e.g., your IT department, so that they may resolve the issue. 

The personal statement is a brief narrative (no more than one page, single-spaced, in Arial or Helvetica 11-point font) describing your journey as a scholar and how your proposed work connects to your personal experience and broader research interests. 

You might choose to include information about your motivations for pursuing a particular topic of study or methodology, or how your classroom experience informs your approach to your proposed research, or other information about you that would illuminate your trajectory as a scholar.

No. In the 2026-27 competition year, this program will not require or accept writing samples. Reviewers will consider your proposal itself as a sample of your writing.  

No. In the 2026-27 competition year, this program will not require or accept letters of recommendation as part of the fellowship application package.  

However, if you concurrently apply to the joint New York Public Library/ACLS Fellowship program, you need to submit three letters of recommendation for the New York Public Library application.   

Proposals will be reviewed in two stages. At the first stage, three established scholars in your discipline (and/or regional area of study) will judge your proposal. These reviewers may or may not specialize in the particular sub-field(s) covered in your proposal. The first stage of review determines which applications will go on to the final stage. At that point, applications are reviewed by a panel of scholars whose collective expertise covers a range of disciplines in the humanities and humanities-related interpretive social sciences. 

At the first stage, your application will be reviewed in the context of others at your relative career stage in your discipline. In the second stage, your application will be judged against others at your relative career stage but from a range of humanistic disciplines. 

To address experts in your field, explain why this project offers insight into the issues of your discipline, and make clear what question or problem is being addressed. For those outside your field, explain any terms that might not be familiar, and explain both why your project is significant for your field and its possible implications for scholars in other fields.  

The proportion of the proposal that should be devoted to each constituent part will vary depending on the project. An important part of proposal development is determining the most important elements of your project and presenting them to your best advantage within the specified word/page limit.

The projects that are ultimately selected vary widely. While there is no one model to follow for a successful application, you may view previous awardees and their project descriptions. You may also benefit from reviewing Writing Proposals for ACLS Fellowship Competitions by Christina M. Gillis. 

Yes, all applicants will be able to request reviewer feedback. A link to request reviewer feedback will be provided with your application status notification. Before sending out comments, ACLS will confirm that the reviewer’s identity has not been disclosed inadvertently. Given the time and care required for this process, you should expect to receive reviewer comments by August 2027. 

ACLS can arrange payment through your institution or directly to you. However, institutions are not allowed to deduct funds for overhead or indirect costs from fellowships they administer. For more information, review Information for Institutional Administrators. 

There is no separate application for ACLS Project Development Grants.  

Rather, these $5,000 research grants will be offered to especially promising applicants from teaching-intensive institutions from within the overall pool of applicants to the ACLS Fellowship program. Recipients will be selected within the normal review process from among applicants who advanced to the final stage and whose projects, while not selected for one of the very few fellowships available, would be advanced substantially by these seed grants. 

While teaching and service are vital elements of a faculty career at all institutions of higher education, teaching-intensive institutions are those whose faculty teach a greater number of courses per year than those at research-intensive institutions, often with fewer institutionalized resources for research.  

Community colleges, baccalaureate colleges, HBCUs, and regional comprehensive universities are generally considered to be teaching-intensive institutions for the purposes of this award. 

ACLS Project Development Grants are intended to be flexible and may be used to cover any expenses incurred in advancing the fellow’s proposed research project, including but not limited to: travel expenses (for research or for attending relevant scholarly conferences); research assistance; research materials (books, equipment, software/licensing fees, reproductions); archival access/permission; and scholarly programming such as workshops or speaker series related to their projects.