Asia: Responsive Grants

Asia: Responsive Grants

Status: ACTIVE
Funder: Henry Luce Foundation
Last Updated: March 16, 2026

Summary

The Henry Luce Foundation's Asia: Responsive Grants program supports initiatives that enhance understanding of East and Southeast Asia. With a focus on academic research, cultural exchange, and public education, the program seeks to promote collaboration between American and Asian institutions. Grants are awarded primarily to U.S.-based non-profits, fostering innovative teaching, resource development, and policy engagement, while prioritizing projects that bridge diverse disciplines and geographic divides.

Overview

Asia Program The Henry Luce Foundation has been working to deepen understanding and strengthen relationships between Asia and the United States for more than 80 years. In keeping with our founder’s vision, we believe that a more peaceful and collaborative future can be forged by finding common ground across borders and cultures. With an emphasis on the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and ideas, we seek to promote trust and understanding among Americans and Asians and to increase awareness of Asian American experiences. Responsive Grants Responsive Grants provide opportunities to build knowledge and increase understanding of East and Southeast Asia through scholarship and exchange, with an emphasis on strengthening capacity in the United States. They typically support research and training, the creation of scholarly and public resources, and intellectual and cultural exchange between Americans and Asians. The Responsive Grants category is deliberately broad, allowing the Asia Program to respond to new ideas and keep abreast of trends, needs and priorities relevant to Asia-focused work in our three grantmaking areas (academic work, foreign policy, public education). The Asia Program primarily awards grants to colleges, universities, think tanks, museums, and other non-profit organizations based in the United States, while recognizing the need to support the growing capacity and increasing desire for knowledge creation within Asia. Our interests include: Asia-focused teaching and research initiatives, typically for multi-year projects whose benefits extend beyond a single institution to advance the broader field of Asian studies. The majority of our funded work is in the humanities and qualitative social sciences, including projects that seek to reexamine the conventional area studies model and explore new approaches to training and research.Development and dissemination of library, archival, research and pedagogical resources, including digital resources.Research, dialogue and engagement with policy relevance, particularly in areas with limited channels of communication. Efforts to educate and inform non-specialist audiences about Asia, through museum exhibitions, journalism and media offerings, and cultural programming. Next generation training and leadership development. Collaboration, exchange, and border-crossing initiatives, including across geographic, disciplinary, institutional and/or sectoral divides. This may include work that spans the divides of our own grantmaking areas, such as projects that bridge the gap between academic and policy work, or between scholarship and broader public education.

Eligibility

You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website. General Eligibility Requirements and RestrictionsGrants are only made to institutions and cannot be made directly to individualsTypically, grants are made to 501(c)(3) organizations or their international equivalent.As a general rule, we prefer to fund only direct project costs, which may include general administrative costs directly related to the grant-funded project (e.g., percentages of support staff salaries, office supplies, rent, etc. that can be clearly attributed to the funded project)The geographic scope of the Asia Program’s grantmaking is limited to projects with a primary focus on the countries and cultures encompassed within East and Southeast Asia. “East Asia” refers to China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, and Taiwan. “Southeast Asia” refers to Brunei, Burma/Myanmar, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Ineligibility

The Foundation does not support healthcare, medical, disaster relief, or international development projects. The Foundation does not provide support to political parties or political campaigns, or for lobbying or other political activities. The Foundation does not contribute to annual funds, fundraising events, endowments, or building campaigns.The Foundation's guidelines and resources do not allow inclusion of South or Central Asia as a primary focus of activity, although work on inter-Asia connections may be considered.While travel, publications, conferences and/or translation may be included as components of a larger project, we do not support stand-alone travel, publication, translation or individual research projects, and only limited funding is available for stand-alone conferences, or film or television productions.Given the volume of inquiries we receive and because Asian studies is now well-integrated into American higher education, except through Special Initiatives (see below) we are not able, as a rule, to assist individual institutions with the development of their Asian studies programs.