Scouloudi Public History Grants support innovative practice in public history and provide funding for defined projects by historians working together in and beyond higher education.
Launched in 2025, this is the first year of a new programme which is generously supported by the Scouloudi Foundation.
About the Public History Grants programme
The scheme follows a series of workshops, ‘Doing History in Public’, run by the Society in 2024 to consider the many forms of, and participants engaged in, public history and how the Society might best support these endeavours.
Grants support historians, working both within and beyond higher education, to pursue projects that involve and are designed for public audiences and address subjects of public interest.
The Society expects to make up to four awards, of £1000 each, in this first round of the RHS Scouloudi Public History Grants.
The call for this first round of awards opens on Tuesday 18 March and will close on Friday 23 May 2025.
Applications must be submitted via the Society’s applications portal >
Grants will be awarded for projects that require small-scale funding to begin and complete a defined phase of work, or continue to a next defined phase of a larger project. Recipients are expected to undertake their project between July 2025 and June 2026.
For the purposes of these awards, the Society defines public history as collaborative activities that bring together, in a co-productive relationship, historians working in Higher Education with those employed or engaged in the Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM) sector or with community history groups.
In offering these grants, the Society seeks to encourage work of this kind, and to provide necessary financial support for non-academic participants which is often unavailable through existing funding schemes.
Our hope is that recipients will be able to develop their specific projects while also providing insights on the effective and equitable practice of public history for a wider audience.
Upon completion of the grant, recipients will be asked to submit a short report (e.g., for the Society’s blog) offering guidance on their experience of and approach to public history.
Scouloudi Public History Grants may be used to support a range of initiatives. These may include (but are not limited to):
- venue hire to facilitate meetings or exhibitions of work;
- travel by participants to undertake a project;
- production costs for outputs arising from the project, e.g. printing, displays or record storage
- online or print publications / communications to support a project.
Please note: payments to temporary staff for their role on a project, or purchase of equipment, technology or other permanent assets to undertake public history work is not supported by this award.
Eligibility and making an application for a Scouloudi Public History Grant, 2025-26
The Society welcomes joint applications from two lead applicants comprising: one historian employed in higher education and one member of a partnering public history group (for example, in the GLAM sector or a community history project) outside UK HE. At least one lead applicant must be a current Fellow or Member of the Royal Historical Society.
Grants are available to those working within higher education who are:
- at any career stage, from an advanced stage of a PhD onwards;
- working in or outside history departments, where the major component of a course is historical (including, for example, legal history or history of medicine);
- seeking to begin or further develop an existing public history project with a defined group outside higher education, and require funding of the level available to do so;
- seeking to establish, or are currently engaged in, a demonstrably collaborative and co-productive partnership with historians and / or historical groups active beyond higher education.
Grants are available to those working outside of higher education (e.g. in the GLAM and/or community history sectors) who are likewise:
- seeking to undertake a defined project with academic historians to further activities involving non-academic members and/or historians, and for which funding is otherwise unavailable.
Lead organisers of successful applications will also be able and willing to
- undertake the project, with RHS financial support, between1 July 2025 and 30 June 2026;
- provide a short report on the success (or otherwise) of the project, in a format that can be appropriated and re-used in the public history practice of others.
How to apply
As Public History Grants are designed to bring together historians in Higher Education with those in public history, we ask that each application names two lead applicants, one from each of your principal areas of work (e.g. HE, the GLAM sector, community history). Only one application, made by one of the lead applicants, is required per project.
Applications will comprise submission of:
- details of two lead applicants (one working in Higher Education) and one outside HE;
- short CVs (2-page max) for both lead applicants;
- a joint statement on the project and proposed use of funds (500-750 words max).
When awarding Public History Grants, primary consideration will be given to the proposed quality and value of the project; demonstrable evidence of reciprocal and co-productive activity between partners; and the extent to which a project will likely inform the practice of public history more widely.
In this and all similar awards, the Society is keen to support historians who lack access to alternative resources (institutional or other) to enhance their work, or where funding opportunities are very limited.
Applications must be submitted via the Society’s applications portal >
Questions about the Scouloudi Public History Fellowships, 2025-26, may be sent to: administration@royalhistsoc.org.
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