Funding Opportunities

Our Process

The Simpson Center provides financial and administrative support for faculty research projects in the humanities and humanistic social sciences. We offer individual fellowships and fund faculty-led collaborative projects in two categories: Conferences & Colloquia and Crossdisciplinary Research Clusters. In these two categories, projects likely to contribute to building intellectual community across disciplines and departments at the University of Washington are especially encouraged, as are connections with cultural and educational institutions in the greater Seattle area and beyond. 

Also core to our mission is supporting graduate student research through individual fellowships and Graduate Research Clusters. 

The Simpson Center administers two funding rounds per year, in Fall and Spring Quarters. Both fall and spring rounds support the same funding term, July through June of the following year. Grant applications are reviewed and selected for support by the Simpson Center Executive Board. Proposed projects should be planned for the subsequent academic year.

Applications for some categories are accepted in both the fall and spring; however, some categories are only open during one funding round, as noted below. 

Simpson Center Programs are grounded in collaboration, crossdisciplinarity, and an ethos of experimentation. We are eager for new, unconventional projects that don’t fit neatly into one of our other categories but that align with the Simpson Center’s mission. Please contact Rachel Arteaga to discuss.

Opportunities for Faculty

• Society of Scholars Research Fellowships (Fall Funding Round) – an intellectual community in which eight faculty and three doctoral students from across disciplines in the humanities and interpretive social sciences contribute to and learn from one another’s work in bi-weekly meetings throughout the academic year.
• Digital Humanities Summer Fellowship (Fall Funding Round) – support for four faculty pursuing research projects that use digital technologies in innovative and intensive ways and/or explore the historical, social, aesthetic, and cross-cultural implications of digital cultures.
• Colloquia and Conferences (Fall and Spring Rounds) – include speaker series, international research, and working conferences, and are selected for support based on their crossdisciplinary and interdisciplinary focus.
• Crossdisciplinary Research Clusters (Fall and Spring Rounds) – seed new collaborations among faculty and graduate students who share research interests.

Opportunities for Graduate Students

• Society of Scholars Graduate Fellowship (Fall Funding Round) – an intellectual community in which eight faculty and three doctoral students from across disciplines in the humanities and interpretive social sciences contribute to and learn from one another’s work in bi-weekly meetings throughout the academic year. This program has been expanded to include additional Summer Society of Scholars Fellowship cohort for doctoral candidates.
• Digital Humanities Summer Fellowship (Fall Funding Round) – supports UW doctoral students whose projects use digital technologies in innovative and intensive ways and/or explore the historical, social, aesthetic, and cross-cultural implications of digital cultures. 
• Barclay Simpson Scholars in Public (Fall Funding Round)– supports doctoral students in the humanities, broadly speaking, to pursue public-facing projects in their areas of study and practice. 
• Graduate Research Clusters (Spring Funding Round) – supports crossdisciplinary and interdisciplinary research.