2025-26 IDRH Digital Humanities Fellows Competition
2025-26 IDRH Digital Humanities Fellows Competition
Deadline: September 7, 2025, 11:59pm.
The Institute for Digital Research in the Humanities invites applications for the 2025-2026 cohort of Digital Humanities Fellows.
The Digital Humanities Fellows are a cohort of faculty members, staff, and students from across the university committed to thinking and working together for an academic year. Joining with the IDRH Colloquium Series, the Fellows cohort is designed to form the foundation of an ongoing, institution-wide conversation about issues in the public and digital humanities. Fellows will workshop projects, attend events, and be granted unique access to networking opportunities and training in DH methods and tools.
Eligibility
University of Kansas faculty (at any rank, on or off the tenure track), graduate students, post-docs, and academic staff are eligible to apply.
Award
Fellows who are teaching faculty will receive a course release in the spring 2026 semester and a $500 research account that can be used to reimburse approved expenses related to their digital project. In the event faculty are unable to accept a course release, they may opt for the same stipend and research account as non-teaching faculty, staff, and grad students (described below). Preference will be given to those who can accept the release.
Graduate student fellows and other non-teaching fellows will receive a $2000 stipend plus a $500 research account that can be used to reimburse approved expenses related to their digital project.
In addition, fellows will enjoy regular consultations with IDRH staff, a cohort for networking and collaboration, and technical support targeted to maximizing progress on digital projects.
Requirements
DH Fellows are required to:
Attend and participate in a Fellows Welcome Session on the afternoon of September 16, 2025.
Attend and participate in Lauren Klein’s public talk and private workshop (September 18 & 19).
Attend and participate in IDRH Workshops (2-3 per semester).
Attend and participate in the Jumpstart Workshops (October 16-17).
Attend and participate in occasional informal, happy-hour-style events. Fellows will occasionally be asked to share work-in-progress at these events for feedback and discussion.
Pending space and schedule, present their work-in-progress publicly at one of two Digital Humanities Lunches hosted by the Hall Center for the Humanities. These are short, lightning-talk-style introductions, not full research talks. Note: DH Lunches are scheduled for February 18 and March 24
Present their work publicly at a final Digital Humanities Fellows Symposium to be held in May 2026.
Submit a final survey about how the fellowship has advanced their own research. We are interested in how the Fellowship led to progress on a specific project, new collaborative relationships, and/or future grant opportunities.
Application Process
For an application to be verified as complete, and thus considered by the review committee, applicants must:
Submit applications via email to idrh@ku.edu by Sunday, September 7, 2025. 11:59 PM. Send the following materials as a single PDF file using the filename: “2025-dh-fellows-application-LASTNAME-FIRSTNAME.pdf”
Project Proposal not to exceed two double-spaced pages, with one-inch margins and twelve-point type. Endnotes are included in the page limitations. This narrative should focus on a specific digital project and indicate how the fellows program outlined above will advance it. Identify the purpose of the project, your qualifications for pursuing it, the end-goals of the projects, and, critically, the steps you will take with the fellowship to move you closer to your end goals. If the project has particular DH-related needs, be sure to mention these as well.
Note: If you don’t have an established project, please identify a potential project or digital humanities idea you’ll pursue with the resources of the Fellowship. Projects may relate to any aspect of the digital humanities, including but not limited to: research, teaching, public-facing work, data-management, etc. & etc.
Curriculum Vitae (not to exceed 2 pages) that includes:
Record of applicant's education, including the dates when degrees were awarded;
Record of applicant's employment;
List of applicant's publications, creative work, digital scholarship, or public scholarship in the last five years; and
List of applicant's awards and grants received during the last five years.
Faculty seeking a course release should include a brief note from their chairperson indicating the department’s support of the fellowship. This note should not be a recommendation of the applicant or their project, but simply an indication that the applicant’s department supports the course release. Departments will be given $6,500 for their instructional budget. This note may be an email addressed to the applicant but should be included in the application as part of the PDF.
Criteria and Selection Process
A panel composed of IDRH co-directors and staff will select DH fellows according to the following criteria:
Quality of the conception, organization and description of the Project Proposal; and the participants' potential for engaging in collaborative digital humanities work.
The quality of the fit between the proposed project and the resources of the IDRH.
Likelihood that the applicant's participation will advance their professional development or lead to a significant contribution to a digital project.
The committee will also aim to create a cohort of fellows that spans a range of academic backgrounds. The committee will select approximately 5 fellows contingent upon funding.
Questions?
Please consider attending the DH Fellows Information Session on August 28, 2025, 4pm. Zoom Registration. This will be recorded if you can’t make it.
Applicants should direct all questions about the DH Fellows program to IDRH co-director Dave Tell (davetell@ku.edu).