ACLS Digital Justice Grants 2026–27: Up to $100,000 for Humanities and Social Sciences Projects

The ACLS Digital Justice Seed and Development Grants 2026–27 are now accepting applications for digital projects in the humanities and social sciences. Supported by the Mellon Foundation, the program offers $10,000–$25,000 Seed Grants and $50,000–$100,000 Development Grants, with applications due by November 3, 2026.

Background & Grant Description

The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) has opened the final competition of its Digital Justice Grants Program for 2026–27. Generously funded by the Mellon Foundation, the program supports digital projects in the humanities and social sciences that critically engage with the interests and histories of people of color and other historically marginalized communities through the ethical use of digital tools and methods.

The program offers two funding categories.

Digital Justice Seed Grants provide between $10,000 and $25,000 for projects in the start-up, planning, experimentation or prototyping stage.

Digital Justice Development Grants provide between $50,000 and $100,000 for projects that have progressed beyond the proof-of-concept stage and can demonstrate significant preliminary work and engagement with scholarly or public audiences.

The grants aim to address inequalities in access to digital research tools and support, particularly for scholars working with under-utilized or understudied source materials and researchers at institutions with limited support for digital projects.

Grant recipients may also receive general financial planning coaching from the Nonprofit Finance Fund to help plan for the long-term stewardship and sustainability of their projects.

Tasks

The ACLS Digital Justice Grants support projects undertaking activities such as:

Critically engaging with the interests and histories of historically marginalized communities through ethical digital methods.
Developing new approaches to knowledge creation and dissemination.
Building capacity in digital humanities methods.
Training students in digital humanities as part of project content-building activities.
Developing technological infrastructure with community partners.
Creating collaborations between scholars across academic and cultural heritage institutions.
Exploring new materials, methodologies and research agendas.
Organizing planning workshops and testing prototypes.
Advancing digital projects beyond the proof-of-concept phase.
Developing the next financial, technological and intellectual stages of an established project.

For Seed Grants, the emphasis is on exploration, experimentation, planning, prototyping and testing.

For Development Grants, applicants should demonstrate substantial preliminary work and evidence of engagement and impact with scholarly and/or public audiences.

Qualifications

Education and Certification

The principal investigator must be a scholar in the humanities and/or interpretative social sciences.

An institution of higher education in the United States must administer awarded grant funds.

Projects must also be made as widely available as intellectual property restrictions permit. ACLS indicates that projects should ideally use the most liberal appropriate open-source or Creative Commons licensing for their underlying content.

Experience

The experience requirements differ according to the grant category.

Seed Grant applicants must propose projects that are still within the start-up or prototyping phase.

Development Grant applicants must demonstrate:

Significant preliminary work
Progress beyond prototyping or proof of concept
Engagement with scholarly and/or public audiences
Evidence of impact with relevant audiences

The program does not support projects whose sole or primary purpose is the production of creative works such as novels or films, textbooks, straightforward translations, or purely pedagogical projects.

Institutional indirect costs are also not covered.

Additional Information

Grant Amounts

The two funding categories provide:

Digital Justice Seed Grants:
$10,000–$25,000

Digital Justice Development Grants:
$50,000–$100,000

The grant terms must begin between July 1, 2027 and December 31, 2027, with an expected work plan lasting 12–18 months.

Who the Program Supports

ACLS particularly seeks to support digital projects that engage with the experiences, interests and histories of historically marginalized communities, including Black, Latinx and Indigenous communities, people with disabilities, and queer, trans and gender-nonconforming people.

The program also seeks to expand participation in digital humanities and support scholars who may have limited institutional resources for digital projects.

Application Deadline

The deadline for the ACLS Digital Justice Seed and Development Grants 2026–27 is:

November 3, 2026, at 5:00 PM EST

Applications must be submitted through the ACLS Online Fellowship and Grant Administration system (OFA).

Applicant Support

ACLS is also offering a webinar series during the application period. Sessions include general information meetings with program staff and topic-specific webinars covering areas such as:

Data ethics
Capacity building
Data stewardship

The first general information session is scheduled for August 20, 2026, at 2:00 PM EDT.

Prospective applicants should review the program’s application and eligibility requirements and supplementary materials before preparing their proposals.

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