The Leventhal Map & Education Center’s Small Grants Fund for Early Career Digital Publications supports scholars through the process of producing a publication for general audiences in a digital format. The program is designed to catalyze creative projects which utilize a digital medium to present scholarly work through engaging, accessible, and experimental communicative modalities.
The grant consists of a stipend of $1,200 to support research and development time, together with institutional research and technical support from LMEC staff through the stages of the digital publication process. Projects may be conducted by scholars working both inside and outside of the academy on all topics related to geography, maps, history, and the humanistic spatial social sciences, either individually or in a group (though the stipend amount is fixed regardless of the number of scholars involved in the project). The primary author of the publication should be an early career scholar, as defined in the Eligibility section below. Digital publications produced through these grants will be published and hosted by LMEC on one or more of its digital portals, though projects will be licensed on a Creative Commons license and further publication, in digital or print formats, is not precluded by receipt of a grant. Projects may be conducted remotely, and grant recipients are not required to plan any in-person project time in Boston.
The Leventhal Map & Education Center has produced numerous scholarly digital publications in a number of formats. By way of example, see:
This grant program supports emerging scholars who seek to make their own work accessible, engaging, and interactive through similar digital publications. Any work related to topics in geography, maps, history, and the humanistic spatial social sciences is eligible for consideration under this grant, though we will prioritize projects of the following kind:
Successful applicants will receive a stipend of $1,200, to be disbursed individually to the project’s primary author in two parts, at the beginning of the project and after the completion of publication. Additionally, successful applicants will receive a commitment of research collaboration as well as technical development from LMEC staff, beginning with the project’s initial roughing-out stage and continuing through to publication. Technical assistance can include the coding and design needed to produce a publication in one of the formats described in the examples above, or limited assistance in creating another digital modality of the author’s design. Grantees should not, however, expect LMEC staff to support entirely bespoke design and coding process for a one-off publication modality.
Grantees will be asked to give a 20-30 minute presentation to the LMEC staff roughly midway through the completion of their project. Additionally, before August 30, 2025, grantees will be expected to produce a 3-5 minute project pitch designed to introduce the project to a wider, non-academic public audience, to be archived on the Center’s YouTube page.
This grant has no in-person requirement and grants may be issued to individuals who have no plans to travel to Boston during the project period. For those who do wish to work with the Center’s physical collections, priority access to the reading room will be provided.
Scholars of all professional backgrounds are encouraged to apply to the grant, both those formally associated with an academic institution as well as professionals working on scholarly projects outside of the academy. Scholars may be trained in any disciplinary specialization.
Applicants may apply individually or as part of a project group, though ordinarily project groups should consist of not more than three individuals.
For the purposes of this grant, an early career scholar is defined as anyone who does not meet any of the following three criteria:
Grants are available to all scholars regardless of citizenship; however, if the individual primarily responsible for the project does not have a United States tax identification number, you should contact us in advance to determine whether you will be able to receive the stipend.
Apply to LMEC’s Small Grants Program
An application consists of the following material submitted by Monday, May 20, 2024 at 5pm ET:
Successful applicants will be notified by June 20, 2024.