Mellon Foundation Higher Learning Program Award

Sponsor: Mellon Foundation
Internal Deadline: 01/15/2026
Institutional Submission Limit: 3
Sponsor Deadline: 02/17/2026
Program Website

Through its Higher Learning grantmaking area, the Mellon Foundation invites humanities-grounded concepts for research and/or curricular projects focused on one of two topics:

• Unruly Intelligences – Projects that consider the emergence of generative AI, where the humanities have an urgent role to play in shaping contemporary understanding of artificial and other intelligences and in making practical, informed recommendations about how to regulate and/or adopt AI in our learning, work, and most intimate lives.


• Normalization and Its Discontents – Projects that consider how the concept of normalcy governs notions of human life and the structures and systems that sustain it. Projects might investigate the comparative historical, geographic, and/or cultural treatments of the normal; normalcy and political contestation; the import of the normal within specific disciplinary approaches; the unspeakable, the taboo, and other deviances surreptitiously produced by a norm; or potential relationships between the normal and the utopian.

Submission Process

Registration Instructions

If you are interested in applying for this opportunity, please register by December 1, 2025, at 3:00 p.m. using the link provided in the Program Website. When completing the registration, please use the following institutional information:

Organization Information

• Organization Name: The University of South Carolina
• EIN: 57-6001153

Institutional Contact Information

• First Name: Jenni
• Last Name: Asman
• Job Title: Senior Director, Corporate & Foundation Relations
• Work Email: asmanj@mailbox.sc.edu

If you are eligible, Mellon will invite you to attend one of two webinar sessions. Session dates and times are as follows:

• Wednesday, January 14, 3:00p.m. – 4:00p.m.
• Thursday, January 15, 11:00a.m.-12:00p.m.

Internal Submission Requirements

If Mellon deems you eligible to apply, please submit the materials listed below in a single PDF document to Corporate & Foundation Relations at USCCFR@sc.edu by 5:00 p.m. on January 15, 2026.

Your PDF should include:

• Email from Mellon confirming your eligibility to apply.
• Project Concept (maximum 1,000 words) describing:

• The central ideas and specific activities involved;
• The project’s goals and potential impact;
• The fitness of the institution and/or network for the proposed work.
• Budget Estimate including major expense categories (up to $500,000).
• Proposed Grant Term.
• CV for the Principal Investigator (short CV, 1–2 pages).