Funded Projects Query Form
Frequently Asked Questions
How accurate are the results of these queries?
Information about NEH grants is kept in the electronic Grants Management System
database (eGMS) used by the NEH staff. That data is updated regularly as
the NEH receives applications and funds new projects. The categories you can use
here to construct queries about funded projects are used in the day-to-day work
of the NEH, so the results are likely to be accurate. Any large database will contain
errors and anomalies, but we work to ensure the quality and accuracy of eGMS data.
One goal is to improve the descriptive metadata (that is, the fields on the form
that you can search, such as project director's last name, key words, field of
project, etc.) about each grant to facilitate better searching. If you find any
errors or have any comments, we encourage you to contact us. Please see the questions
or suggestions section below.
Are all of your grants included?
Yes. Information about NEH grants made in the years prior to the agency's first
electronic storage system was stored on
edge-notched "McBee" cards,
and the data from those cards was added to the eGMS database in 2015. So information
about all NEH grants, from fiscal year 1966 onward, is accessible using this form.
In many cases, the available metadata for older grants is sparser than for more
recent grants.
There is a 30-day waiting period after a grant is made before it is visible to the
public via this form.
To prevent errors, no query will return more than 5000 records.
In the drop-down lists, why are some programs and divisions/offices marked with
an asterisk?
Over the years, some NEH programs and divisions/offices have been supplanted by
others. The programs and divisions/offices that are currently active are marked
with an asterisk. So if an NEH program's name has changed over the years and you
want to see all of the grants funded by that program over time, you must search
using each of those names. For example, the Humanities Collections and Reference
Resources program used to be known as Preservation/Access Projects. If you have
questions about current and former program names, please let us know. (See the questions
or suggestions section below.)
Can I save my my queries and share them with others?
Yes. Once you submit a query and get the list of funded projects matching your criteria,
you'll see a link near the top of the screen to Save query.
If you click there you will see a permanent link to the results on that page. You
can copy that link for later use, or share the query with others by sending the
link to them.
In addition, you can save the results of your query as an Excel table. There is
a link to Export results to Excel above the list of
grants returned by your query. If you click that link, your results will be converted
to an Excel table which you can save to your device.
Is there a way for me to do a bulk download of your grant data for research purposes?
Yes. All of our public grant and evaluator data can be downloaded in bulk in XML
format. See our datasets
page where you can download the zipped XML files and all documentation.
In addition, you can construct querystrings and send them to the query form; see
the Using the NEH Funded Project Query Web API
documentation elsewhere on this site.
Can I search on multiple fields at the same time?
Yes. This form allows you to search in any number of fields simultaneously. For
example, if you wanted to know what grants were made by the Division of Research
Programs
in California, in the years from 2010 to 2015, here's how you could find that information:
- Select California from the drop-down list of states;
- Select Research Programs from the drop-down list of
divisions;
- Select 2010 and 2015 from
the drop-down lists of years; and
- Click the Show results button.
How is the field of project selected?
Applicants for NEH grants select fields of project from lists of humanities-related
fields and subfields (e.g. Philosophy, British Literature, History of Science, etc.).
By including this field in your queries, you can search for projects using the humanities
fields specified by the applicants. Keep in mind that many projects fit into more
than one field; you may therefore wish to conduct more than one search, using related
fields of project. In addition, over the years the names of some fields have changed.
For example, if you are looking for grants in art history, you might search not
only for Art History but also for
Art History and Criticism and Arts History and Criticism.
What advice do you have for using the Key words section of the query form?
If you select Key Words and supply some words (for
example, "the blues," or "Plato's Republic"), the software will search the project
title supplied by the grantee, as well as the grantee's project description and
the brief "to support" statement that NEH staff adds to describe a project, if they
are available.
You can use the radio buttons to tell the software to look for
any of the words that you supply (either "Plato's" OR "Republic"),
all of the words (both "Plato's" AND "Republic"), or the
exact phrase ("Plato's Republic"). The first option will obviously
yield the most matches, and the third the fewest.
Unless you select the This phrase option, the software
will ignore noise words like a, an, of, in,
or, and, not, and the. So if you enter "the
ancient city of Atlantis" and specify ALL of these words
or ANY of these words, you'll get the same results
as if you'd searched only for the three words "ancient," "city," and "Atlantis."
But if you choose This phrase, the software
will search for the whole string of words that you've supplied.
The ANY of these words option can be useful when a
word takes multiple forms. For example, to find grants related to Argentina, you
should also search for Argentine and
Argentinian.
If you check the Whole words only box, the software
will ignore grants where your search words appear as substrings of longer words.
If you provide Asia as one of your key words, you might
be surprised to find that your results include grants having to do with the translation
of Anastasian sermons or with philosophical aspects
of euthanasia.
To exclude such unexpected results, simply check the Whole words
only box on the form.
If you'd like to find grants on Plato but not on
Platonism or Neoplatonism,
check the box and enter Plato as a key word. To include
grants on Platonism, etc., leave the box unchecked.
When you do a key word search, the software looks in fields that may not be included
in the results you see. Some NEH programs expose the applicants' project descriptions;
others do not. Some programs provide short one- or two-sentence grant summaries
("to support" statements); others do not. For some programs, only the project titles
are exposed. Since key word searches limited only to project titles would omit many
relevant results, the software looks in all of the aforementioned fields, even if
they are not displayed in the results returned by your queries.
Finally, all key word searches, regardless of the options you specify, are case-insensitive.
What advice do you have for using the Date Range section of the query form?
If you specify a Date Range, the years are inclusive:
the software will look for grants that were made beginning at the start of the Date range beginning year and ending at the conclusion
of the Date range ending year. So, to see only one
year's worth of grants, make both years the same. (For example, to search only for
grants made in 2017, you should select 2017 from both the Date
range beginning and Date range ending drop-down
lists.) To find grants made in more than one year, make sure that the ending year,
specified in the Date range ending field, is later
than the beginning year, specified in the Date range beginning
column -- if the ending year is earlier than the beginning year, you won't get any
matches. Also, bear in mind that the years in this form correspond to federal fiscal
years (which begin on October 1 and end on September 30), not to calendar years.
For that reason, a grant made in December 2010 will show up on the form as a 2011
grant, not as a 2010 grant.
Note also that the year in which a grant was made is reflected in its grant number.
The last two digits refer to the fiscal year in which the award was made. (As noted
above, the federal fiscal year runs from October 1 to September 30). So, for example,
grant number CH-20976-98 was made during fiscal year 1998.
In the grid displaying the results of my query, what is the difference between
"approved" amounts and "awarded" amounts?
When a grant is made, an amount is specified, the approved amount.
This is the maximum amount of the grant, and it usually does not change during the
life of the grant. The awarded amount represents the
amount actually awarded to date, which often does change during the life of the
grant, e.g. if the grant is funded over multiple years. In most cases when a grant
is finished, the awarded amount equals the approved amount.
What's the purpose of those options to search for grants with products, coverage,
prizes, and white papers?
Several years ago the NEH began gathering data from grantees about "products" resulting
from their grants -- books, articles, films, exhibitions, courses, conferences,
blog posts, etc. In addition, we are asking grantees to provide information about
"coverage" their grants may receive -- media coverage, reviews, awards, etc. --
and prizes their products may win. Any grants for which we have information about
products, coverage, or prizes will include links to that information. And when you
do key word searches, the software will look for your key words in product, coverage,
and prize data as well as the other fields mentioned in the answer to the previous
question.
The various checkboxes enable you to limit your queries to grants with products,
coverage, or prizes. For example, if you leave the Products
box unchecked, the results will include all grants that satisfy your criteria, whether
or not they have products; if you check the box, the results returned will include
only grants having products associated with them. Likewise for the other options.
Several grant programs in the Division of Preservation and Access and the Office
of Digital Humanities require grantees to submit "white papers" describing technical
issues encountered and solutions developed during the course of their grants. These
white papers are solicited with the understanding that they will be made available
to the public. As with products, coverage, and prizes, you can limit your search
to only grants for which we have white papers. White papers can be viewed via links
in the search results.
What other advice do you have for understanding the results of a query?
Records matching your criteria will appear in a table listing the grantee, the project
title, the application number and year, and other details. If there are no matches,
you will receive a message to that effect.
You can determine the way in which your results are sorted by selecting one of the
options from the Sort results by... drop-down list.
The default option sorts the results chronologically, with the most recent grants
listed first.
You will receive an error message if you do not supply any search criteria. You
must
either provide some text in one of the textboxes or make a selection from one of
the drop-down lists.
What if I have questions or suggestions?
We welcome your feedback. If you spot errors in the software or in the data returned,
or if you simply have questions or comments, please contact the NEH Chief Information
Officer at cio@neh.gov.
If you are working on a report examining NEH grants and would like assistance in
compiling data, please contact the NEH Office of Planning and Budget at
opb@neh.gov.