NEA Research Labs, FY2022 | 2021NEA01ORALABS

Opportunity Information: Apply for 2021NEA01ORALABS

The NEA Research Labs, FY2022 opportunity is a discretionary funding program from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) designed to support transdisciplinary research teams that can produce solid, empirical evidence about the arts and how they affect people, communities, and other sectors. It sits within the NEA's broader five-year research agenda and is presented alongside a related program, Research Grants in the Arts. While Research Grants in the Arts typically supports studies on the value and impact of the arts through standard grants, NEA Research Labs specifically supports team-based, cross-field work grounded in the social and behavioral sciences and is structured as a cooperative agreement, meaning the NEA expects to be substantially involved in shaping the direction, milestones, and outcomes of the funded work.

Funding under NEA Research Labs is offered as matching/cost share cooperative agreements up to $150,000 per award (CFDA 45.024). The matching requirement means recipients must contribute non-federal resources to share the total cost of the project. Because this is a cooperative agreement rather than a traditional grant, applicants should expect more active federal participation than usual, including collaboration with NEA staff around project execution and deliverables. The overall goal is to generate findings that are useful not only to arts organizations and cultural leaders, but also to non-arts partners such as educators, public health stakeholders, local governments, community development groups, and others who can apply research evidence in policy and practice.

Projects funded through this opportunity can begin on or after March 1, 2022. The typical period of performance is up to two years, but projects that include primary data collection (for example, surveys, interviews, experiments, direct observations, or other newly collected datasets) may request up to three years to accommodate the added time needed for study design, data collection, and analysis. An important restriction is that an organization cannot receive more than one NEA award for the same project during the same period of performance, which is meant to prevent duplicate federal support for identical work happening at the same time.

Eligible applicants are broad and include many types of public and nonprofit entities: state, county, and city or township governments; special district governments; independent school districts; public and state-controlled institutions of higher education; private institutions of higher education; federally recognized Native American tribal governments; and nonprofit organizations with 501(c)(3) status (excluding higher education institutions when applying in the nonprofit category). The opportunity is categorized under Arts as the funding activity area, and the posted opportunity number is 2021NEA01ORALABS. The original closing date listed for applications was March 29, 2021.

In practical terms, NEA Research Labs is aimed at teams that can bridge disciplines and methods to answer real questions about the arts using rigorous social and behavioral science approaches. The NEA is looking for research that does more than describe arts activity; it should produce credible, testable, and usable insights that can inform decisions across the arts ecosystem and beyond it. Since the NEA intends to be substantially involved, applicants should be prepared for an ongoing partnership dynamic, with clearer expectations around coordination, progress, and the public value of results than might be typical under a standard research grant.

• The National Endowment for the Arts in the arts sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "NEA Research Labs, FY2022" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 45.024.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2021-01-29.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2021-03-29. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $150,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education.

Apply for 2021NEA01ORALABS

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