The Digital Justice Development Grants support projects that have advanced beyond the prototyping or proof-of-concept phase.
Donor Name: American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS)
State: All States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 11/20/2025
Size of the Grant: $10,000 to $100,000
Grant Duration: Less than 1 Year
Details:
The proposals for such projects should be able to provide evidence of significant preliminary work already completed, as well as articulate the next financial, technological, and intellectual phases of project development.
Funding Information
$50,000 and $100,000.
Grant Period
Grant terms must begin between July 1, 2026 and December 31, 2026, with a workplan that lasts from 12-18 months.
Eligibility Criteria
- At least one of the project’s principal investigators must be a scholar in the humanities and/or the interpretative social sciences.
- Projects must demonstrate evidence of significant preliminary work as well as a record of engagement and impact with scholarly and/or public audiences.
- Projects must be made as widely available as intellectual property constraints allow, ideally with the most liberal open-source and Creative Commons license that is appropriate for the underlying content.
- An institution of higher education in the United States must administer any awarded grant funds.
Evaluation Criteria
Peer reviewers in this program evaluate all eligible proposals on the following criteria:
- The project’s critical engagement with the interests and histories of people of color and/or other historically marginalized communities through the ethical use of digital tools and methods.
- The feasibility of development, extension, and/or renewal plans, including (where appropriate) reflections on intentional sunsetting and data stewardship beyond the grant term.
- The proposal’s analysis of the various technological, financial, and/or institutional supports (or lack thereof) and how grant funds might complement, or in some cases, completely underwrite, these gaps in support.
- The project’s potential to bolster the ecosystem of digital scholarship within and/or outside the project’s home institution, whether by (yet not limited to) its intellectual contributions, innovative use of existing technology, and/or networks of skills-building and sharing.
- The project’s clarity with respect to how it will engage its longstanding or new primary audiences and/or beneficiaries.
- The strategic and intentional use of specific digital tools and methods, as well as the anticipated impact and clarity of the project’s digital deliverables.
For more information, visit ACLS.