Opportunities
With support from the VCU Office of Research and Innovation and the College of Humanities and Sciences, the Humanities Research Center is pleased to support VCU faculty at all stages of their career through grants, fellowships, co-sponsorships, and more.
HRC Undergraduate Research Fellowships
Deadline: April 30th, 2025
The VCU Humanities Research Center is pleased to invite applications for Undergraduate Research Fellowships at the HRC for AY 2025-26. All VCU undergraduate students are invited to apply for this fellowship.
Co-sponsorship Funding
Deadline: Rolling
The Humanities Research Center is pleased to provide co-sponsorship funding and support to a variety of events, programs, and academic initiatives at VCU each year. Co-sponsorship requests are reviewed on a regular basis, and funding decisions are based on availability of funds and expected reach and impact of the event.
Call for Proposals: Course Content Creation for “Rural Health” Modules
Deadline: May 15th, 2025, 5:00 p.m.
The Health Humanities Lab at the Humanities Research Center and the Office of Health Initiatives are calling for applications to create online learning modules for a new learning series centered on rural health and advancing rural health outcomes.
Grants
Conference travel grants support travel by VCU faculty in the humanities to present their scholarly findings at major domestic and international conferences. Full-time tenured, tenure-eligible, and term faculty in the humanities and humanistic social sciences at VCU are eligible to apply for these conference travel grants. The maximum award is $1,000, and funding is prioritized for applicants who demonstrate previous and/or ongoing contributions to the intellectual life of the HRC.
Fall Deadline: October 15
Spring deadline: March 15
Research travel grants foster excellence in research and creative scholarship at Virginia Commonwealth University by providing funds to support direct research costs incurred by faculty. These costs include travel to archives and other research sites, lodging, meals and expenses related to collection of data such as photocopying and photography fees. (These awards are not to be used for conference travel, for the purchase of books or equipment, or for travel to use archival material that is available on the internet.)
Full-time tenured, tenure-eligible, and term faculty in the humanities and humanistic social sciences at VCU are eligible to apply for these research travel grants. Funding is prioritized for applicants who demonstrate previous and/or ongoing contributions to the intellectual life of the HRC. The proposals will be evaluated by the HRC grants sub-committee and director based on the project's merit, feasibility of research plan, and impact.
Fall Deadline: October 15
Spring deadline: March 15
The Humanities Research Center offers a number of 5×5 Collaborative Grants to encourage faculty in the humanities, humanistic social sciences, natural sciences, and the arts to organize around a topic of common interest. This can include a set of readings, an activity, or just an idea which could lead to future research/projects.
Deadline: Rolling
Fellowships
The Humanities Research Center’s annual residential fellowship program gives up to 4-6 faculty members release from teaching responsibilities for one semester so they can focus on individual research projects and at the same time engage regularly with each other. The goal is to foster intellectual exchange and to enhance the quality of research at VCU by exposing faculty to different perspectives and methodologies. Fellows meet as a group once a week during the Fellows' Seminar to discuss their works-in-progress. Fellows are given the opportunity to give public presentations about their projects during the academic year following their residency at the Center. Publications resulting from this fellowship program must acknowledge the Humanities Research Center’s support.
Fellowship applications are now closed for the 2024-25 academic year.
With support from the Office of Health Initiatives, the Honors College, the OVPRI, and the East Marshall Street Well Project, the HRC Health Humanities Lab offers a number of fellowships each year to graduate and undergraduate students in the Arts or College of Humanities and Sciences with an interest in the humanist study of healthcare and health disparities. The undergraduate and graduate student fellows develop their own research projects and work closely with the lab director.
The HRC Graphic Narratives Lab is seeking three undergraduate student fellows for the 2024-2025 academic year. The fellowships are open to any major, and will last through the fall and spring semesters. Fellows will propose a project plan, either in the creation (i.e comic strip, zine), writing (writing a script for a comic or zine), and/or scholarship of comics (i.e. an essay discussing a topic/theme within the comics genre). Fellows will be mentored by a lab co-director, and in addition to working on their projects throughout the year, will also meet once a month as a group to talk about their progress, and will organize an event once a semester to present their projects to the campus community.
Fellows will also be expected to participate in and support events put on by the HRC Graphic Narratives Lab, and encouraged to attend other events at the HRC during their fellowship. If you’re interested, please submit your proposal through the form below.
Fellowship applications are now closed for the 2024-25 academic year.
The VCU Humanities Research Center is pleased to invite applications for Undergraduate Research Fellowships at the HRC for AY 2025-26. All VCU undergraduate students are invited to apply for this fellowship. The goal of these fellowships is (a) to support humanities research by undergraduates at VCU, (b) to connect them with the multidisciplinary networks of the Humanities Research Center, and (c) to assist undergraduate students in securing future research fellowships or internships in the careers they wish to pursue. Rising juniors and seniors are encouraged to apply. The accepted fellows will receive a stipend for the year, affiliation with the HRC, and mentoring from humanities faculty. We are seeking to facilitate connections between a cohort of undergraduates (10-12) and connect them with mentors and projects in their areas of interest. The cohort will meet twice a month as the Undergraduate HRC Fellows Seminar.
Application Requirements
- A narrative statement describing what draws you to the fellowship and, specifically, what interests you in pursuing humanities research. You may list any questions driving your research in the humanities, possible projects you wish to explore (take a look at our Humanities Labs), as well as connections to your chosen career path (no more than 300 words);
- A brief statement about how you wish to contribute to the Humanities Research Center’s mission of fostering a multidisciplinary humanities environment (no more than 300 words);
- A current (unofficial) academic transcript that includes a list of courses you have already taken;
- A brief letter of support from a faculty member familiar with your work.
Selection Criteria
- The clarity of the narrative statement;
- The potential contributions the fellow and the project will make to the intellectual life of the HRC;
- The potential impact of the fellowship on the applicant's ability to conduct research in the humanities;
- The scholarly record of the applicant;
- The potential impact of the research project on disciplinary, academic, and/or community audiences.
To apply: email required documents as 1 pdf to cstanciu@vcu.edu.
These fellowships are contingent on continued institutional funding for the HRC.
Deadline: Apr. 30th, 2025