Humanities Innovation Grants: Workforce Equity
Forecasted
Humanities Innovation Grants: Workforce Equity support faculty and small teams in improving academic working conditions through mentoring, workforce research, and fairer workload and hiring practices.
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Funder: Modern Language Association
Due Dates (Anticipated): September 2027 (Application deadline)
Funding Amounts: $3,000 per grant; approximately five awards anticipated in the 2026 cycle
Summary: Supports initiatives improving workforce fairness and working conditions in language, literature, writing, and culture departments or programs.
Key Information: Applicants need active MLA membership or affiliation with a MAPS-member department at application and award.
Description
The Modern Language Association’s Humanities Innovation Grants: Workforce Equity supports projects that research, develop, implement, and sustain good practices for academic workforce fairness. Funded through the MLA’s Paving the Way: For the Future of the Humanities fund, the program supports individual faculty members and small teams improving working conditions at the department or program level, especially for graduate students and non-tenure-track faculty.
Supported work may include mentoring for non-tenure-track faculty, departmental professional development, collaborations across academic units to strengthen career outcomes, and data collection or analysis about working conditions. Other priorities include improving workload policies for contingent faculty, reducing precarity among faculty, graduate students, and staff, and developing ethical and equitable hiring practices. New initiatives may build on existing institutional support infrastructure.
