The George A. and Eliza Gardner Howard Foundation is an independent foundation administered at Brown University. It awards a limited number of fellowships each year for independent projects in selected fields, targeting its support specifically to early mid-career individuals, who have completed at least one major project and demonstrate potential to be future leaders in their fields. (Please consult Eligibility requirements for further information.) Artists and scholars supported by the Howard Foundation are expected to devote a substantial portion of time during the fellowship year to advancing new work. It is an unrestricted, non-residency fellowship for the sole purpose of aiding the intellectual and artistic development of the recipients. Fellowship funds may be used in combination with sabbatical leaves or other sources of support, but this is not a requirement.
The Howard Foundation was officially established in 1952 and offered its first fellowships in 1954.
Since 1954, 489 Howard Fellowships have been awarded totaling over 10 million in grant funding to those in the arts and critical disciplines.
The Howard Foundation will begin accepting applications on July 1, 2024 for the upcoming fellowships in Object and Installation Based Art / Art History, Architecture, and Visual Culture.
Deadline: Nov. 1, 2024
The Howard Foundation offers fellowships in a cyclical rotation of fields, as described below for following years. Please note that the fellowships are awarded in the spring of the award year, and the deadline for application is in the fall of the preceding year. Successful candidates will be given the option of postponing receipt of their fellowship, so as to make the Howard competition accessible to those whose personal plans do not line up exactly with the year in which awards are offered in their fields. While the Foundation plans to follow this sequence of fields, additional changes may from time to time need to be made as warranted by the limited resources of the Foundation.
- 2022-2023 Photography; Film Studies
- 2023-2024 Music Performance; Musicology/Ethnomusicology
- 2024-2025 Emerging Arts; Science and Technology Studies
- 2025-2026 Object Based Arts and Installation Based Arts; Art History, Architecture, and Visual Culture
- 2026-2027 Fiction and Poetry; Literary Studies
In order to be eligible to apply for a Howard Fellowship, candidates should be able to answer "yes" to each of the following questions. If "no" is the correct answer to any of them, they are asked to explain on the application form what special circumstances might make them eligible anyway, given the requirements for a Howard Fellowship.
Can your current professional status appropriately be viewed as “early mid-career” as understood by the Howard Foundation? Appropriate candidates for a Howard Fellowship should have completed their formal studies within the past five to fifteen years and should also have successfully completed at least one major project beyond degree requirements that would be sufficient for the awarding of tenure at a research institution or for achieving comparable peer recognition, e.g., through publication. Candidates who are already nationally and internationally recognized leaders in their fields as reflected by their promotion to full professor or by comparable recognition in their fields of endeavor are not normally eligible for a Howard Fellowship.
Would a Howard Fellowship provide you with time off from other responsibilities to work on your proposed project? Our support is particularly intended to augment paid sabbatical leaves. In the case of independent artists or scholars, or those without paid leaves, we would expect that a Howard Fellowship would enable them to devote a substantial block of time to the proposed project.
Are you, regardless of your citizenship, currently living and working in the United States?
Does your proposed project fall within one of the fields established for this year's round of applications? Given the limits of our resources, we must adhere strictly to the fields announced each year for project proposals.