ACLS HBCU Faculty Fellowships and Grants 2026–2027: Up to $50,000 for HBCU Faculty Research

ACLS HBCU Faculty Fellowships and Grants 2026–2027: Up to $50,000 for HBCU Faculty Research

The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) is accepting applications for its 2026–27 HBCU Faculty Fellowships and Grants competitions. The program is designed for faculty members at Historically Black Colleges and Universities who are developing humanities or social-science research, or research-grounded work on teaching and learning in higher education. It has two tracks: a larger fellowship for projects that need sustained research time and a project grant for earlier-stage or more contained development.

The official ACLS draft-application portal gives the current-cycle dates: optional draft materials for feedback are due by August 31, 2026, and final proposals for both competitions are due November 11, 2026, at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time. The deadline is shared by the fellowship and project-grant tracks. This is an active 2026–27 opportunity, not an archive of the prior competition.

This guide summarizes the published award structure, eligibility rules, required materials, and application workflow. Read the ACLS competition page and FAQ before submitting because the competition pages control the final format and prompt language.

Key Details at a Glance

The award amounts and requirements above follow ACLS’s published program and competition descriptions. The fellowship and grant are separate tracks, but both include the $2,500 institutional grant and finalist research support described by ACLS. Confirm the live competition prompts and any portal notices before submitting.

What the Program Offers

The program is structured as two complementary tracks so that faculty at different stages of a project can choose an appropriate form of support.

The HBCU Faculty Fellowships provide $30,000 to $50,000 based on the applicant’s proposed budget. ACLS describes this track for projects that need sustained time and engagement. Eligible uses include a semester or year-long research leave, summer salary, course releases, travel to collections or conferences, research assistance, editorial support, publication or dissemination costs, and childcare or eldercare that enables project work. The proposal and budget should make clear how the requested funds will create time and conditions for meaningful progress.

The Project Grants for HBCU Faculty provide up to $10,000. ACLS positions them for research project development, exploratory work, and a defined stage of a larger project. A grant could support archival or library research, research assistants or participants, a pilot method, a workshop, collaboration across institutions, editorial work, a course release, community engagement, or preparation for later funding. The application should show what the grant will accomplish and why the requested amount is appropriate for that stage of the project.

Applicants who advance to the finalist round but are not ultimately selected still receive a $500 grant toward their research, an unusual and generous touch that recognizes the effort of reaching the final stage.

Every fellowship and project grant also comes with a separate $2,500 grant to the awardee’s home institution for humanities programming or infrastructure. Awardees can also participate in networking and mentorship opportunities aligned with their scholarly goals and institutional circumstances. Applicants who reach the finalist stage receive access to project and proposal development workshops as well as the $500 research grant.

Who Should Apply

The program is open to applicants employed primarily as instructors at an institution designated as a Historically Black College or University. The official eligibility language does not require a full-time or tenure-track appointment, and part-time and adjunct instructors are welcome to apply. The HBCU must be an eligible accredited institution; applicants should use ACLS’s linked HBCU list to verify their institution rather than relying on an informal designation.

Applicants must hold an MA or PhD in the humanities or related social sciences that was conferred by the application deadline. Projects must address a topic in the humanities or social sciences, or the teaching and learning of those disciplines in a higher education setting. That last clause is worth underlining: pedagogical and scholarship-of-teaching projects are eligible, not only traditional monograph research. If you want to redesign how you teach African American history, build a digital archive for classroom use, or study how students engage with a difficult text, those are in scope.

The research approach also matters. ACLS says eligible projects must use predominantly humanistic approaches and qualitative or interpretive methodologies and must include original scholarly research. A project may produce a monograph, article, chapter, conference paper, course plan, pedagogical tool, exhibition, online resource, community or campus event, or another scholarly or public-facing result. A project rooted mainly in quantitative or experimental social science is not a fit, and teaching projects must concern a postsecondary setting rather than K–12 education.

Awardees must remain employed at an accredited HBCU for the duration of the award term and agree to take part in occasional networking, project-development, and mentorship events. Those are award obligations, not optional résumé activities, so applicants should confirm that their institution and schedule can support them.

This program is a strong fit if you are:

• An HBCU faculty member with a research or writing project that has been squeezed out by teaching and service.
• An adjunct or part-time instructor who has never had access to a research budget.
• A scholar of teaching and learning who wants to formalize and study a classroom innovation.
• Someone with a book manuscript that needs a concentrated block of time to finish.

It is a weaker fit if your project falls in the sciences, engineering, or professional fields outside the humanities and social sciences, or if you are a graduate student rather than employed faculty.

Choosing the Right Track

Because the two tracks are judged against different expectations, choosing correctly is the first strategic decision.

Pick the fellowship if your central need is sustained research time. The fellowship application must build that need into the budget: ACLS requires a commitment to at least four course releases across the award term, two consecutive summers of research time, or a semester-length research leave. The project may be a book, a major research corpus, a digital humanities resource, a public humanities project, or another substantial research-grounded outcome. The workplan should connect the requested leave or releases to specific stages of the project.

Pick the project grant if the work is earlier in development or narrower in scope and the main need is targeted funding. A pilot, exploratory research trip, research workshop, preliminary archive visit, community partnership, editorial phase, or defined step toward a larger project can fit. The committee will want a clear deliverable or next stage, not a general statement that the money would be useful.

If you are genuinely torn, ask whether the project mainly needs a bounded infusion of funds or a substantial reduction in teaching and service. That answer should determine the track. The same project cannot be submitted to both the fellowship and grant competitions in the same year, so do not duplicate one proposal across the two tracks.

Application Process and Required Materials

Applications are submitted through the ACLS Online Fellowship and Grant Administration system (OFA). ACLS’s current competition descriptions specify the following materials. Prepare them in the format the live form requests, because applications that do not follow the stated formatting rules can be excluded from review:

• Completed application form: This includes biographical information and short-answer questions about the project, teaching or service responsibilities, scholarly interests, and institutional context.
• Project proposal: The fellowship proposal may be no more than five double-spaced pages, including footnotes or endnotes and images. The project-grant proposal may be no more than two double-spaced pages, including footnotes or endnotes. Explain the research base, goals, work already completed, and resources needed to finish the proposed stage.
• Personal statement: Provide the required one-page, double-spaced statement describing your journey as a scholar and how personal experience, scholarly influences, and research interests inform the project.
• Bibliography: Supply the track’s required bibliography, with primary and secondary literature separated where requested. The fellowship description allows up to two pages; the project-grant description allows one single-spaced page.
• One-page workplan: Tie the activities to the award term and show what will be done with the requested time and money.
• Basic budget: Use ACLS’s sample template as a guide and make each line item serve a project need. Fellowship budgets should show the required research leave, course releases, or summer support.

Reference letters and institutional statements of support are not required with the initial application for either track. If selected, provisional awardees must provide institutional certification confirming that they may carry out the proposed work; ACLS says that certification is completed by a department chair, dean, or other senior administrator during award confirmation. Do not add speculative letters or a generic endorsement in place of the materials the form requests.

ACLS offers optional draft feedback for the current competition. A draft may contain a complete or incomplete proposal, workplan, and/or budget. All draft materials must be combined into one Word document or PDF and submitted through the official HBCU draft portal by August 31, 2026. This review is not part of formal selection and has no bearing on the final decision. It is useful for checking whether the proposal, workplan, and budget tell the same story, but it does not replace a final application in OFA.

Timeline and Deadlines

Plan backward from the final deadline:

• Before August 31, 2026: Decide which track fits the project, verify the HBCU and degree requirements, and assemble a draft proposal, workplan, and budget if you want ACLS feedback.
• August 31, 2026: Submit the optional draft-review package through the ACLS HBCU draft portal. Combine the materials into one Word document or PDF.
• After draft review: Revise the argument, scope, workplan, and budget together. Confirm that the fellowship budget meets its research-leave requirement or that the project-grant budget is proportionate to a bounded development stage.
• November 11, 2026, 5:00 p.m. ET: Submit the complete final application through OFA. Saving a draft in the system is not the same as transmitting it, so allow time to upload every file and confirm submission.

Working backward, set an internal deadline before November 11 for the final proposal and budget. Since initial reference letters are not required, spend that time on a precise workplan, accurate page lengths, readable formatting, and a final check that every cost is connected to a research activity or a condition that makes the activity possible.

Preparation Strategy and Reviewer Expectations

The reviewers for this program are scholars who read many proposals in a short window. They reward clarity and specificity and lose patience with vague ambition. A few principles consistently separate strong applications from the rest:

Lead with significance, then feasibility. Explain why the project matters to the field, students, campus, or communities involved, then show exactly what can be completed during the award term. A strong premise still needs a credible sequence of work.

Make the “why now, why this award” explicit. Reviewers should see why the project needs this track and how the award changes the work. For a fellowship, name the leave, releases, or summer time and connect each period to a research task. For a grant, name the archive visit, workshop, assistant, method, or other expense and the product it will support.

Write for an intelligent non-specialist. The committee spans disciplines. Define your terms, avoid unexplained jargon, and make the stakes legible to someone outside your subfield.

Show institutional grounding. Awardees must remain at an HBCU, and each award includes institutional support for humanities programming or infrastructure. Explain how the project relates to your teaching, students, colleagues, campus, or community when that connection is genuine.

Use the feedback channel. The August 31 draft option can expose a mismatch between the proposal, workplan, and budget before the final submission. Treat feedback as a chance to make the application more specific, not as a substitute for your own final review.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Choosing the wrong track. Applying for a fellowship when you needed a project grant (or vice versa) forces reviewers to evaluate your proposal against expectations it was never designed to meet.
• Treating the proposal as a literature review. The committee wants your argument and your plan, not a survey of everything written on the topic.
• Vague deliverables. “I will make progress on my book” is not a plan. Name the chapters, the chapters’ arguments, or the specific outputs.
• Inventing a letter requirement. The initial application does not require reference letters or an institutional statement of support; follow the actual form.
• Skipping the draft feedback. If you want ACLS feedback, submit the single-file draft package by August 31 rather than assuming the final deadline applies to that service.
• Missing the eligibility fine print. Confirm your degree is conferred by the deadline and that your appointment counts as being “employed primarily as an instructor” at the HBCU.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to be tenure-track? No. Full-time tenure-track status is not required, and part-time and adjunct instructors are welcome to apply.

Can I submit the same project to both tracks? No. ACLS says the same project cannot be submitted to both the fellowship and grant competitions in the same year. Choose the track that matches the project’s scale and main constraint. The draft portal also asks applicants submitting drafts for both competitions to submit each draft separately.

What disciplines qualify? The humanities and related social sciences, including projects on teaching and learning within those disciplines in higher education. Projects rooted in the natural sciences, engineering, or professional fields outside these areas are not eligible.

Is US citizenship required? The core requirement is employment as an instructor at an accredited HBCU and the relevant degree; confirm any residency or citizenship specifics on the official page.

What if my project uses quantitative social-science methods? ACLS requires predominantly humanistic approaches and qualitative or interpretive methodologies. A project whose main method is quantitative or experimental social science is not a fit for this program, even if it is based at an HBCU.

Do I need a reference letter with the initial application? No. ACLS says reference letters and institutional statements are not required at initial submission. A provisional awardee will later need institutional certification confirming permission to carry out the proposed work.

Official Links and Next Steps

Start at the official ACLS HBCU Faculty Fellowships and Grants page. From there, review the HBCU Faculty Fellowships competition, the Project Grants for HBCU Faculty competition, and the program FAQ. The final application is submitted through the ACLS Online Fellowship and Grant Administration system.

Your practical next steps are to verify the HBCU and degree requirements, choose the fellowship or project-grant track, draft the proposal with its matching workplan and budget, and use the optional draft portal by August 31, 2026 if feedback would help. Then submit the complete application through OFA by November 11, 2026, at 5:00 p.m. ET. The strongest page in the portal will be the one whose research question, requested support, institutional context, and measurable workplan all point in the same direction.