Funding & Awards

4-6 awards will be given to faculty/students and one partner organization who have exhibited outstanding public humanities engagement in the past two years. The Public Humanities Hub recognizes that there are many diverse publics and many diverse humanities methods for engaging these publics. For the first five awards, we encourage nominations of individuals a) who employ more traditional forms of engagement, i.e. through print and broadcast media, and/or b) who employ more creative approaches like community partnerships, podcasts, videos, films, exhibitions, festivals and more. We are particularly interested in recognizing scholars whose work has contributed to the expansion of the range of voices in public discourse and who attempt to facilitate two-way dialogue with broader publics.

• Value: $1,000/Award X 6
• Eligibility: Outstanding public humanities engagement in the past two years
  • UBC-V faculty member (tenured/track) in the Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Education, and Allard School of Law.
  • Lecturer, sessional, or postdoctoral fellow in the UBC-V Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Education, and Allard School of Law. 
  • Graduate student in the UBC-V Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Education, and Allard School of Law. 
  • Partner organization working on a collaborative public humanities project with an eligible UBC-V scholar in the Faculty of Arts, Allard School of Law, or the Faculty of Education. 

Deadline: June 3, 2024

Guidelines and application form: Nominations will open in late April 2024.

For more information, please contact Heather Tam, Program Manager.

The Public Humanities Hub can provide in-kind support for UBC-led SSHRC Connection Grant applications in support of conferences and outreach activities showcasing Humanities research.

• Eligibility: The Public Humanities Hub matching funds for SSHRC Connection grants will support applicants to SSHRC Connection Grants who are full-time, tenured or tenure-track UBC-V faculty members appointed to the Faculty of Arts, Education, or Allard School of Law.  

Guidelines: (Click here)

Request matching in-kind support

For more information, please contact Heather Tam, Program Manager.

The Public Humanities Research Seed Grant program aims to provide support for new creative, collaborative, and experimental public humanities projects, imagined broadly. The Seed Grants  provide small funds to support early stage research activities that will maintain or strengthen research capacity and research excellence and, importantly, advance knowledge in the humanities. These funds “seed” small projects by providing an initial investment to help incubate ideas, research activities and collaborations that might go on to find larger research funding sources for long-term sustainability as the project grows. The purpose of this program is to seed early-stage public-facing humanities projects by helping to remove initial barriers, support preliminary research activities, and foster collaboration to help mobilize humanities ideas and contribute to knowledge advances in the public sphere. 

• Value: $2,000/grant X 8  
• Eligibility: UBC-V Faculty member (tenured/track 5), and UBC-V Graduate Student, PhD or postdoctoral scholar (3) in the Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Education, and Allard School of Law. 

Deadline: December 18, 2023

Guidelines and application form: Applications have closed.

For more information, please contact Heather Tam, Program Manager.

Priority Thematic Public Humanities Research Incubator Grants support new, interdisciplinary and collaborative public humanities research projects in initial stages proposed by small (2) or larger (3+) teams with the intent subsequently to apply for Tri-Council funding. The grants enable the development of new research questions, as well as experimentation with new Humanities methods, theoretical approaches and/or ideas.  

The Incubator Grants provide funds to support early stage interdisciplinary and collaborative research activities that will maintain or strengthen research capacity and research excellence and, importantly, advance knowledge in the humanities. 

• Value: $20,000/grant X 3
• Application Procedures + Form provided below   
• Must include 2+ UBC-V Faculty members (tenured/track) in the Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Education, and Allard School of Law, appointed to a minimum of two different departments. Can include additional faculty members from other faculties or universities as appropriate.
• Interdisciplinary Themes:   
  • Global Race, Anti-Racism & Social Justice Humanities  
  • Environmental/Climate, Land & Place-Based Humanities 
  • Health, Body, & Dis/Ability Humanities 
  • Critical Digital Humanities, Multiple Materialities & New Publics 
  • Justice, Public Memory, & Narrative Humanities  
• Supports new, interdisciplinary and collaborative public humanities research projects in initial stages proposed by small (2) or larger (3+) teams with the intent subsequently to apply for Tri-Council funding. This grant is a pilot project for 2023-2024.

Deadline: January 22, 2024

Guidelines and application form: Applications have closed.

For more information, please contact Heather Tam, Program Manager.

The Public Humanities Faculty Fellowships will provide a course-release to two full-time, tenured or tenure-track UBC faculty members (in either research or educational leadership streams) to work on individual Humanities-oriented research projects requiring dedicated release time. These awards will enable successful applicants to do their research within an interdisciplinary community of scholars and, with Hub support, to explore ways to make their research more public-facing and/or to share their research more broadly. 

• Value: 1 Course release ($11,000); and $5,000 research grant; up to 3 will be awarded  
• Eligibility: UBC-V Faculty members (tenured/track) in the Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Education, and Allard School of Law 
• Fellowships awarded to recognize a faculty trajectory of public humanities research excellence and extraordinary knowledge mobilization initiatives 

Deadline: March 14, 2024

Guidelines and application form: [Click here]

For more information, please contact Heather Tam, Program Manager.