Scholarly Communications and Information Technology

Program Staff and Senior Advisors

Donald J. Waters, Program Officer
Helen Cullyer, Associate Program Officer
Paula Muir, Program Associate
Tara Hankinson, Program Assistant
Hans Rutimann, Senior Advisor

Overview

The Scholarly Communications and Information Technology Program was formed in 2010 through the merger of the Programs on Scholarly Communications and Research in Information Technology.

Scholarly communications covers a broad range of activities, including the discovery, collection, organization, evaluation, interpretation, and preservation of primary and other sources of information, and the publication and dissemination of scholarly research.  Within this wide area, the Foundation’s grantmaking in scholarly communications has three main objectives: (1) to support libraries and archives in their efforts to preserve and provide access to materials of broad cultural and scholarly significance; (2) to assist scholars in the development of specialized resources that promise to open or advance fields of study in the humanities and humanistic social sciences; and (3) to strengthen the publication of humanistic scholarship and its dissemination to the widest possible audience.

Information technology includes the design, development, implementation, and support of computer-based systems for converting, storing, protecting, processing, retrieving, and transmitting information in electronic form.  Grantmaking in information technology focuses on the development of computer-based applications and systems that advance the objectives of the five core areas of Foundation interest: the liberal arts and humanistic scholarship in higher education, scholarly communications, museums and art conservation, performing arts, and conservation and the environment.

The Scholarly Communications and Information Technology Program is especially interested in developments that:

• Use forms of scholarly communications to stimulate collaborations among scholars and scholarly institutions in ways that substantially advance knowledge;
• Apply technology in the core program areas of the Foundation in order to improve quality, lower costs, accelerate work, open new perspectives, or make improvements possible that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to achieve.
• Help sustain scholarly communications and information technologies economically.

Program Contact Information

Because the Foundation is rarely able to respond positively to unsolicited requests, prospective applicants for support in the Scholarly Communications and Information Technology program are encouraged to explore their ideas informally with program staff in a short email describing their funding needs before submitting formal proposals. Letters of inquiry regarding ideas that fall within the program described above are welcome and reviewed throughout the year. 

Please direct all inquiries to:

Donald J. Waters

 or

Helen Cullyer

Before writing, please review the Foundation’s general requirements for grant proposals in the Grant Inquiries section of this Web site. Also, please note that grants within the Scholarly Communications and Information Technology program do not cover overhead or indirect costs, or graduate student tuition.