NEH Data Management Plan Requirements for Digital Humanities Grants

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) requires a Data Management Plan (DMP) with most applications to its Office of Digital Humanities (ODH), including Digital Humanities Advancement Grants and other ODH-administered programs. NEH’s DMP requirements share a common origin with the National Science Foundation’s — ODH’s own guidance document credits NSF’s Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences for much of its language, adopted deliberately to keep the two agencies’ expectations aligned. But the underlying data are different: NEH-funded projects typically produce text corpora, software, digital archives, curriculum materials, and geospatial or cultural-heritage records rather than laboratory, clinical, or instrument-generated datasets, and the plan has to be written accordingly.

This guide walks through what NEH’s ODH actually asks for, how it differs from NSF and NIH data management requirements, and what a compliant plan looks like for a typical digital humanities project.

What NEH Means by “Data” in Humanities Research

NEH’s ODH defines “data” broadly as materials generated or collected during the course of conducting research. Its guidance lists examples specific to humanities and digital-humanities work: citations, software code, algorithms, digital tools, documentation, databases, geospatial coordinates (for example, from archaeological digs), reports, and articles.

Explicitly excluded from the DMP’s scope: preliminary analyses, drafts of papers, plans for future research, peer-review assessments, communications with colleagues, materials that must remain confidential until published, and information whose release would identify a research subject or otherwise invade personal privacy.

ODH is explicit that “many variables govern what constitutes ‘data'” and that every discipline has its own culture around it — the data an archaeologist produces looks nothing like the data a historian or a text-encoding specialist produces, and reviewers evaluate whether a plan reflects the norms of the applicant’s own field rather than a single fixed template.

The Two-Page DMP: What NEH’s ODH Requires

ODH’s Data Management Plans guidance specifies that the DMP should be short — no more than two pages — and submitted as a supplementary document with the application. It must address two core questions: what data will the research generate, and how will that data be managed. Reviewers use the DMP as part of merit review, and awarded projects must later report on their compliance with it.

Within those two pages, ODH expects the plan to cover:

• Expected data. The types of data, samples, physical collections, software, curriculum materials, or other materials the project will produce, and which of those will actually be retained.
• Roles and responsibilities. Who manages and retains the data, including what happens to those responsibilities if a project director or co-project director leaves the institution or the project mid-award.
• Period of data retention. How the project will assure “timely access” to its outputs — NEH states a strong commitment to timely, rapid data distribution while acknowledging that acceptable norms vary by discipline.
• Data formats and dissemination. The formats, media, and mechanisms the project will use to make data and metadata available, plus how privacy, confidentiality, security, and intellectual-property considerations are handled. Projects built around research centers or industry partnerships must also describe data sharing with those partners and affiliates.
• Data storage and preservation of access. The physical and digital infrastructure — institutional, third-party, or disciplinary repositories — that will store and preserve the data over time, including a credible path for migrating it if that infrastructure changes.

Any costs associated with managing the data (repository fees, digitization, long-term storage) should be reflected in the project’s budget notes, not just described in the DMP narrative.

Digital Humanities Advancement Grants: Tiered Requirements

NEH’s flagship digital-humanities funding line, Digital Humanities Advancement Grants (DHAG), funds digital projects at three funding levels, each with its own narrative page limit — historically Level I, Level II, and Level III, scaling from smaller start-up-stage awards to larger implementation awards with a cost-share requirement at the top tier. Every DHAG application requires the two-page DMP described above, regardless of level. NEH’s own program guidance and the library research-guides that summarize it also describe a separate, longer Sustainability Plan required specifically at the largest funding tier, addressing how the project’s digital assets, software, and infrastructure will be maintained after NEH funding ends — a concern distinct from, and additional to, the data management plan itself.

Because DHAG’s specific funding levels, dollar amounts, and page limits are revised periodically and the program’s application cycle is not guaranteed to be open in any given year, always confirm current tiers, deadlines, and required attachments directly on the NEH Digital Humanities Advancement Grants program page before drafting a submission.

How NEH’s DMP Differs from NSF and NIH Requirements

Because ODH deliberately borrowed NSF’s language, the two agencies’ DMP requirements read similarly in structure. The practical differences show up in what the plan actually has to describe and how it’s enforced:

• Data types. NSF and NIH DMPs typically address instrument output, survey data, clinical or biomedical datasets, and code tied to quantitative analysis. NEH’s ODH guidance is written around humanities-native outputs — text corpora, TEI/XML-encoded editions, digital archives, geospatial and archaeological records, software tools, and curriculum materials — and explicitly acknowledges that “data” itself is a contested, discipline-specific category in the humanities in a way it usually isn’t in the sciences.
• Length and formality. NEH’s ODH plan is capped at two pages and framed as a narrative addressing two questions. NIH’s Data Management and Sharing (DMS) Policy, in effect since 2023, is more prescriptive, with defined elements NIH expects addressed and formal oversight tied to funding decisions. For a direct comparison of NIH’s and NSF’s requirements, see CASRAI’s NIH vs. NSF Data Management Plans guide.
• Enforcement mechanism. NEH evaluates the DMP as part of peer review at the application stage, then requires recipients to discuss DMP compliance in interim and final performance reports — there is no separate compliance office analogous to NIH’s institute-level DMS oversight.
• Repository ecosystem. NSF- and NIH-funded science has a mature landscape of discipline-specific repositories (GenBank, ICPSR for some social-science data, PDB, and others). Humanities and digital-humanities projects more often rely on institutional repositories, disciplinary tools built for cultural-heritage or archaeological data (ODH’s own guidance points to examples like Open Context and the Digital Archaeological Record for archaeology specifically), software-preservation venues such as Software Heritage or Zenodo for citable code, and library-hosted digital collections.

For funder-agnostic guidance on assembling the plan itself, see CASRAI’s Data Management Plan Template and Structure guide, and for the European analogue, see Horizon Europe’s FAIR Data Management Plan requirements and the more targeted ERC Data Management Plans guide.

What a Compliant Digital Humanities DMP Actually Covers

Translating ODH’s five components into a working plan for a typical digital-humanities project means addressing, concretely:

• Describe the actual outputs — is the project producing a searchable text corpus, an encoded critical edition, a relational or graph database, a mapping/GIS layer, custom software, a digital exhibition, or some combination? Name the formats (plain text, TEI-XML, CSV, GeoJSON, source-code repositories) rather than describing data generically.
• State what will and won’t be shared. Humanities projects frequently involve copyrighted primary sources, rights-restricted archival materials, or culturally sensitive content (e.g., Indigenous or community materials) that cannot simply be deposited in an open repository. ODH’s guidance explicitly asks applicants to identify the “lowest level of aggregated data” they can share given their community’s norms and any legal or ethical restrictions — this is often the single most important paragraph in a humanities DMP, and a generic science-DMP template will not prompt for it.
• Name a specific repository or preservation pathway, not just an intention to “make data available.” Institutional repositories, library-hosted collections, and community-recognized platforms for the relevant subfield (archaeology, textual scholarship, GIS) all count; NEH does not endorse any specific tool or repository, but does expect a credible, named plan.
• Address succession. Digital humanities projects often run multiple years with graduate research assistants or a single project director; the DMP should say what happens to the data and any live infrastructure (a website, a database, a search interface) if key personnel leave.
• Budget the real cost of long-term hosting, digitization, or repository deposit fees, and reference that budget line from the DMP narrative.
• Plan for the final white paper. All ODH programs require a public final white paper, which must also discuss data management challenges encountered during the project — plan for this reporting obligation from the outset rather than treating it as a late add-on.

Post-Award: How NEH Monitors DMP Compliance

NEH does not audit data management independently of its standard reporting cycle. Compliance is checked through:

• Interim reports, which must describe progress on data management and sharing, including citations, conference proceedings, or other evidence of dissemination.
• Final performance reports, required for all NEH awards, which must discuss the execution of — and any updates to — the original DMP: what data was actually produced, what will be retained after the award period, verification that it’s available for sharing, the community data-format standards used, the dissemination plan and format (including metadata), and the archival location of the data.
• The required final white paper, shared publicly, which should also address data management challenges the project encountered.

Practical Checklist Before Submitting

• Keep the DMP to two pages, addressing “what data will this project generate” and “how will it be managed,” not a general project description.
• Name concrete data types and formats specific to your subfield rather than generic language borrowed from a science DMP template.
• Explicitly address rights, privacy, and cultural-sensitivity restrictions on primary-source or community materials, and state the lowest level of aggregation you can responsibly share.
• Name a specific repository, platform, or institutional service for storage and long-term preservation.
• Describe what happens to data and infrastructure if the project director changes institutions or leaves the project.
• Reflect any data-management costs in the project budget notes.
• If applying to Digital Humanities Advancement Grants at the top funding tier, confirm on NEH’s current program page whether a separate Sustainability Plan is required in addition to the DMP, and budget separate pages for each.
• Consult your institution’s library or sponsored-research office early — many now maintain templates and staff specifically for humanities DMPs.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does every NEH grant require a Data Management Plan?

NEH’s Office of Digital Humanities requires a DMP with applications to its programs, including Digital Humanities Advancement Grants. Requirements can vary by specific NEH division and program, so applicants outside ODH should confirm current requirements on the relevant program’s page at neh.gov.

How long can an NEH Data Management Plan be?

ODH’s guidance caps the DMP at no more than two pages, submitted as a supplementary document to the application.

Is an NEH DMP the same as a Sustainability Plan?

No. The DMP addresses what data the project will generate and how it will be managed and shared. A Sustainability Plan, required for the largest tier of Digital Humanities Advancement Grants, separately addresses how the project’s digital assets and infrastructure will be maintained after NEH funding ends. Confirm current page limits and applicability for each on NEH’s program page.

Do humanities datasets have to be shared publicly under NEH’s DMP requirements?

NEH expects timely access to research outputs where feasible, but its guidance explicitly recognizes that legal, ethical, and rights restrictions common in humanities research — copyrighted sources, culturally sensitive materials, restricted archives — can limit what can be shared and at what level of detail. The DMP should state the lowest level of aggregated data the project can responsibly share, not assume full open deposit is always possible.

How does NEH check compliance with a project’s DMP after the award?

Through the standard reporting cycle: interim reports must describe progress on data management and sharing, and the final performance report — required for all NEH awards — must discuss execution of and any updates to the original DMP, plus the archival location and format of the retained data.