Call summary :

The Enduring Impacts Request for Proposals (RfP) focuses on the study of archaeological and related interdisciplinary data for the purposes of increasing our understanding of human-environmental interactions over time and to ultimately contribute to mitigating contemporary environmental crises. Current issues like climate change, disruptions to food security, and loss of habitat and biodiversity are threats that were faced by societies in the past. While the challenges we face today may be unprecedented in scale and demographic impact, there is a wealth of information on how people articulated with, mediated, and in many cases impacted long-term environmental trends over millennia. This knowledge can be employed in the development of strategies in environmental sustainability and resilience-building in the present day, and in understanding how human actions in the past continue to affect present-day communities in their ability to tackle environmental and climatic challenges.


Opportunity Overview

This funding opportunity seeks projects focused on the archaeology of sustainable communities and landscapes in changing climates. As sustainability is variable across different places and times, proposals should outline what the term means in the context of the project and what proxies will be used to study it.
Proposals for both research and conservation projects will be considered. Projects should aim to not only produce excellent scholarship and peer-reviewed outputs but also be significantly impactful to present-day stakeholders. Competitive projects will have positive, measurable, and sustainable benefits that may include strengthening community land tenure or resource rights, empowering connections with traditional foodways and other heritage, and/or helping to support transmission of ecological knowledge and practices. The braiding of archaeological research and the knowledge systems of local, Indigenous, and descendant communities has produced many fruitful collaborations over recent years, including examples such as the revitalization of Indigenous fire management to support biocultural resilience and the restoration of acequia canals in Spain and the American Southwest to cope with modern droughts. As such, strong applications should be thoughtfully co-produced with and/or led by descendant, Indigenous, or local stakeholders where appropriate, and comprise teams who have appropriate networks and technical expertise. All projects with relevant data components should align with FAIR and CARE principles to ensure ethical integrity.


Who Should Apply

Proposals may request up to $50,000 USD in funding. This opportunity, awarded at the Level II funding level, is best suited for individual project leaders with demonstrable experience co-creating or collaborating with the stakeholder community(ies) of the proposed study site. These grants are highly competitive and are reserved for select projects that push boundaries to achieve significant and tangible impact. Applicants must be 18 or older at the time they submit their application.
Previous National Geographic Explorers as well as those new to our community are welcome to apply. You are not required to have previously received a grant from the National Geographic Society to apply for this opportunity. All grant recipients will join our Explorer Community and gain access to training courses, software tools, equipment loans, and other resources.


Competitive Proposals

Competitive proposals for this RfP consist of projects that:
- Are scientifically rigorous and interdisciplinary;
- Seek stakeholding community buy-in from the outset of the project;
- Integrate community knowledge systems where applicable, appropriate, and with due care for ethical protocols and intellectual property rights;
- Produce archaeological and/or environmental datasets that can be used in the creation of, or advocacy for, solutions to contemporary environmental issues in collaboration with local communities and/or policymakers.
- Incorporate a robust capacity development or capacity sharing component.
- Delineate how the project’s results will be disseminated and used to create culturally and environmentally suitable conservation strategies at the policy level and/or collaborate with local communities to empower, reinvigorate, or build sustainable environmental practices to strengthen resilience in the face of climate change.
- Demonstrate plans for evaluating the impact of the proposed work.