Planning for Collaborative Digital Editions in African American, Asian American, Hispanic American, and Native American History and Ethnic Studies | DIGITALEDITIONS 202206

Opportunity Information: Apply for DIGITALEDITIONS 202206

The National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), part of the National Archives and Records Administration, is offering a planning grant opportunity (funded with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation) aimed at launching stronger, more inclusive collaborative digital edition projects focused on African American, Asian American, Hispanic American, and Native American history and ethnic studies. The basic idea is to invest early in the people, partnerships, and project design work that digital editions require, especially because these projects are often large, technically complex, and long-term efforts that can take a decade or more to fully complete. Rather than funding the full build-out of a finished edition, this program is specifically about helping teams do the essential groundwork that makes an eventual implementation project feasible, ethical, and sustainable.

A central purpose of the program is to broaden who participates in documentary editing and digital edition production. NHPRC is explicitly trying to expand opportunities for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) who are new to historical documentary editing, including scholars and practitioners already working in history, area studies, and ethnic studies fields. Alongside workforce development, the program pushes applicants to rethink what a digital scholarly edition should look like in the first place, including how editions are conceptualized, which voices and communities they center, and what goals they serve for research, teaching, and public engagement. In practice, that means the planning process is expected to build in meaningful ways to gather community and user input, and to translate that input into project scope, interpretive framing, and user-facing design priorities.

NHPRC also places heavy emphasis on collaboration as both a practical necessity and an equity strategy. Grants in this category are meant for teams, not solo projects. A typical team must include at least two scholar-editors and should also include one or more additional partners such as archivists, digital scholarship specialists, data curators, and other technical or support staff needed to reach the planning goals. The competition strongly encourages applications where BIPOC faculty and staff hold key leadership roles, and it particularly encourages collaborations that involve Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), other Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs), Tribal Colleges, and Indigenous or Native American tribal scholars and community members, as well as members of the Asian American community. The program also signals that involving undergraduate and graduate students, and engaging community participants across planning phases, is viewed as a positive feature when done in a mutually beneficial way.

The opportunity includes a clear definition of what NHPRC means by a digital edition. It is not just scanning materials and putting images online. A digital edition is described as an intentional, contextualized research collection, usually built from a curated body of historical documents drawn from one or more archival collections that may be geographically dispersed. The value-add comes from intellectual access: careful selection, organization, descriptive work, transcription, annotation, encoding, and interpretive contextualization that allows users to ask new questions and supports advanced research and teaching. Because editions require rigorous editorial standards and sustained technical infrastructure, NHPRC frames planning as essential work that should address both human workflows and long-term sustainability.

In terms of what planning grant funds can support, eligible activities include the practical costs of organizing a distributed collaboration, such as travel and related expenses for planning meetings. Funds can also be used for training for project directors, staff, and participating community members, including training opportunities supported by NHPRC. On the technical side, the program allows costs for technical planning work such as wireframing, prototyping, and early testing and evaluation with target audiences to identify needs and priorities. For projects where additional discovery is needed, planning funds may also cover initial surveying of undigitized collections, limited sample imaging or collection, canvassing, community outreach, and associated travel. At the same time, applicants are expected to focus their planning on core fundamentals: defining project conception and scope; building a respectful and sustainable collaboration; securing long-term institutional support; mapping editorial workflows and staffing needs across the full lifecycle (collecting, describing, preserving, compiling, transcribing, annotating, encoding, and publishing); and developing credible plans for technical and financial sustainability.

Award terms are straightforward. The grant can run for up to two years, with funding up to $60,000 per year. NHPRC anticipates making up to six awards in this category, with a total program amount up to $720,000. Projects funded under this round were expected to begin no earlier than January 1, 2023. Recipients must acknowledge NHPRC support in publications, publicity, and other products resulting from the grant.

Eligibility covers a broad range of U.S.-based entities, including nonprofit organizations and institutions, colleges and universities (public or private), state or local government agencies, and federally acknowledged or state-recognized Native American tribes or groups. Cost sharing is not required, but applicants may include contributions such as direct and indirect expenses, in-kind support, third-party non-federal contributions, and project-generated income. A notable budgeting rule is that NHPRC funds cannot be used for indirect costs; if indirect costs are part of the overall project budget, they must be listed under the applicant’s cost share rather than charged to the grant.

Finally, there are standard federal administrative requirements. Applicants must be registered in the System for Award Management (SAM) before applying, must keep that registration active throughout the application and award process, and must include a valid DUNS number in the application (noting that federal identifier systems have evolved over time, but the opportunity text specifies DUNS). Applications that do not meet eligibility and registration requirements are considered ineligible and will not be reviewed. The source data also lists the opportunity as discretionary, using the grant instrument type, within the humanities activity category (CFDA 89.003), administered by the National Archives and Records Administration, with an original closing date of June 8, 2022.

• The National Archives and Records Administration in the humanities (see cultural affairs in cfda) sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Planning for Collaborative Digital Editions in African American, Asian American, Hispanic American, and Native American History and Ethnic Studies" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 89.003.
• This funding opportunity was created on Nov 19, 2021.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Jun 08, 2022. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $60,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 6 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education.

Apply for DIGITALEDITIONS 202206

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