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 fellowships through the Society of Scholars and Digital Humanities Summer Fellowships core programs, as well as Faculty Summer Fellowships, which focus on a shared project type or thematic. We also fund faculty-led Collaborative Research Projects and Events. In this category, 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 fellowships and collaborative Graduate Research Clusters. 

The Simpson Center administers three funding rounds per year, in Fall, Winter, and Spring Quarters. All three rounds support the same funding term, July through June of the following year. Proposed projects should be planned for the subsequent academic year. Applications for some categories are accepted at multiple points in the year; however, some categories are only open during one funding round, as noted below. 

Eligible proposals are reviewed by UW faculty members who serve on the Executive Board of the Simpson Center or on its ad hoc review committees, as specified by category. Reviewers determine, in collaboration with the Simpson Center faculty director, final funding decisions. While the Simpson Center strives to include reviewers from across the humanities and humanistic social sciences on its executive board and review committees, expertise will vary from round to round. It is imperative for applicants to describe the research project in their proposal narratives in language clear to non-specialists in the field.

Board and committee members evaluate proposals based on explicit criteria:

  • The scholarly merit of the proposal
  • The potential of the proposal to contribute to intellectual exchange across disciplines and/or to build intellectual community across disciplines and departments at the University of Washington
  • The fit of the proposal with the mission and goals of the Simpson Center

Guided by the faculty director, the executive board and ad hoc committees meet to discuss the proposals and select awardees. Applicants receive decision letters within the academic quarter of the review.

Applicants do not receive written feedback on their proposals. Records retained in connection with the review process are anonymized. Decisions made through the review process are collective and based on discussion and final consensus, and cannot be attributed to any individual board or committee member.

We encourage applicants to review the successful proposals we keep on file. We are happy to share examples from any funding category, always with the permission of their authors, upon request. (Requests may be sent to Simpson Center Administrative Assistant, Abby Dean, at schadmin@uw.edu). 

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

Simpson Center opportunities are open to all eligible persons regardless of race, sex or other identity.

AI Policy

At the Simpson Center, we believe that writing is an integral part of humanistic analysis and interpretation. Thus, we expect that applicants and awardees will not use AI, defined here as large language models (LLMs), in writing proposal narratives and project outcomes. In turn, all applications are reviewed by Simpson Center Executive Board members without the use of AI. 

For a thoughtful discussion of the potential impacts of AI on writing and other aspects of scholarship, please see the Appendix of the UW Department of History's "Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Artificial Intelligence" (December 2025), especially page 8. Although the appendix focuses on historical practices, we believe much of the discussion is relevant to the broader humanities.

Opportunities for Faculty

We will begin accepting proposals for our Spring Funding Round on Friday, March 20. Proposals must be submitted by the deadline of 11:59 pm on Friday, April 10.

  • Collaborative Research Projects, Events, and Conferences (Spring Funding Round) – support for research collaborations in a variety of formats.
  • Co-Taught Course Development Awards (Spring Funding Round) – support for faculty to collaboratively develop and teach courses.

  • Whiteley Center Faculty Writing Retreats (Spring Funding Round) – funding for travel and related costs for writing retreats at the Whiteley Center.

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  • Co-Sponsored Events (applications accepted on a rolling basis) - These small discretionary grants (maximum $750) support opportunities such as visiting speakers, workshops, and conferences held at the University of Washington (Seattle, Tacoma, or Bothell).
  • Community Connections (applications accepted on a rolling basis) - These microgrants offer focused support for speaker costs and are intended to encourage ongoing efforts by UW faculty in the humanities and humanistic social sciences to meaningfully connect with communities beyond our campus.

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  • Society of Scholars Research Fellowships (Fall Funding Round) – an intellectual community in which eight-nine tenure-track 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.
  • Katz Distinguished Lecturer Nominations (Fall Funding Round) - The Solomon Katz Endowment in the Humanities supports up to three lectures each academic year: one by a member of the UW faculty and two by visiting scholars.
  • Digital Humanities Summer Fellowships (Winter Funding Round) – support for tenure-track faculty pursuing research projects that use digital technologies in innovative and intensive ways and/or explore the cultural, societal, and historical implications of digital technologies. Collaborative projects are encouraged.
  • Faculty Summer Fellowships: New Approaches to Meet the Moment (Winter Funding Round) – support for tenure-track faculty pursuing research projects that seek in some way – through their forms, methods, themes, arguments, or intended audiences – to meet our current historical moment.
  • Digital Humanities Annual Lecturer Nominations (Winter Funding Round) - The Simpson Center annually hosts a visiting speaker in the broad fields of digital humanities, data science studies, and digital culture.

Opportunities for Graduate Students

We will begin accepting proposals for our Spring Funding Round on Friday, March 20. Proposals must be submitted by the deadline of 11:59 pm on Friday, April 10.

  • Graduate Research Clusters (Spring Funding Round) – supports crossdisciplinary and interdisciplinary research.

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  • Society of Scholars Graduate Fellowship (Fall Funding Round) – an intellectual community in which eight-nine 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 an additional Summer Society of Scholars Fellowship cohort.
  • Barclay Simpson Scholars in Public (Reopens in Fall Funding Round 2026) – supports doctoral students in the humanities, broadly speaking, to pursue public-facing projects in their areas of study and practice. This program runs every other year.
  • Digital Humanities Summer Fellowship (Winter Funding Round) – support for UW doctoral students pursuing research projects that use digital technologies in innovative and intensive ways and/or explore the cultural, societal, and historical implications of digital technologies. Collaborative projects are encouraged.