Funding Opportunities

Funding Process and AI Policy

Our Process

The Simpson Center provides financial and administrative support for University of Washington faculty in the humanities and humanistic social sciences to undertake research projects. We offer fellowships through the Society of Scholars and Digital & Data 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, Events, and Conferences. 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 University of Washington graduate student research and community engagement 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 two or less months of funding round deadlines.

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 Administrative Assistant Abby Dean at schadmin@uw.edu.

Simpson Center programs are grounded in collaboration, crossdisciplinarity, and an ethos of experimentation. We are eager to consider new, unconventional projects that do not fit neatly into one of our funding categories but that align with the Simpson Center’s mission. Please contact Associate Director Rachel Arteaga rarteaga@uw.edu to discuss such ideas.

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

2026 Fall Funding Round

Fall Funding Round Deadline: Friday, November 6

Application Form Opens: Tuesday, October 20

Rolling

Open annually from July 1 to April 15.

  • Co-Sponsored Events –  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 –  microgrants offer focused support for speaker costs and are intended to encourage ongoing efforts by UW faculty and doctoral students in the humanities and humanistic social sciences to meaningfully connect with communities beyond our campus.

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Winter Funding Round

  • Faculty Summer Book Fellowships – support for tenure-track faculty writing and completing book projects. 
  • Digital Humanities Summer Fellowships – 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. 

  • Digital Humanities Annual Lecturer Nominations –  the Simpson Center annually hosts a visiting speaker in the broad fields of digital humanities, data science studies, and digital culture.

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Spring Funding Round

 

Opportunities for Graduate Students

2026 Fall Funding Round

Fall Funding Round Deadline: Friday, November 6

Application Form Opens: Tuesday, October 20

  • Society of Scholars Graduate Fellowships – an intellectual community in which eight to nine faculty members 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, or, alternatively, six doctoral students who participate in a Summer Society of Scholars Fellowship cohort.
  • Barclay Simpson Scholars in Public Summer Fellowships – 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.

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Winter Funding Round

  • Digital Humanities Summer Fellowships – 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. 

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Spring Funding Round