ELDP: Small Grants (SG)

ELDP: Small Grants (SG)

Status: ACTIVE
Funder: Endangered Languages Documentation Programme (ELDP)
Amount: Up to €10,000
Last Updated: September 02, 2025

Summary

The Endangered Language Documentation Programme (ELDP) offers Small Grants up to 10,000 € to support the documentation and preservation of endangered languages worldwide. These grants fund fieldwork, pilot projects, and research initiatives aimed at creating accessible, comprehensive language documentation. The program encourages applications from diverse individuals, especially those from language communities, to enhance linguistic resources and methodologies. Successful projects contribute to the global archive of endangered languages, fostering cultural heritage and scientific understanding.

Overview

Endangered Language Documentation Programme (ELDP) Goals The goal of the Endangered Language Documentation Programme (ELDP) is to support the documentation and preservation of endangered languages globally. To this end we give grants worldwide to individuals to document endangered languages. We provide funding for documentation projects led by individuals such as linguists, linguistic anthropologists and community members with skills in linguistic documentation. The funds allow grantees to undertake fieldwork to record speakers/signers of endangered languages on audio and video, compiling a documentary collection of an endangered language. These documentary collections are then archived and preserved and are made freely available through the digital online Endangered Languages Archive (ELAR). Objectives Our key objectives are: to support the documentation of as many endangered languages as possibleto encourage fieldwork on endangered languagesto create a repository of resources for linguistics, social science, and the language communitiesto make the documentary collections freely available Small Grants Small Grants are available to support a variety of documentation activities for endangered languages. The maximum grant is 10,000 €. Small Grants can be used for a range of purposes, such as to carry out fieldwork, develop a pilot project, complete a project already begun, or other documentation-related goals. Applications may be submitted for the purposes of assessing and demonstrating the feasibility of a larger project, or to undertake preliminary or supplementary research to prepare for, or to advance, the documentation of the endangered language. ELDP especially welcomes applications from documenters from language communities, local scholars and students from the country where the language is spoken/signed, as well as collaborative projects. Small Grant projects last from 6 to 12 months; field trips are normally involved. Potential Projects Outcomes of funded projects should include a collection of materials such as digital video and audio recordings, texts of various kinds. Projects should ideally result in documentation materials that are: accessible to and usable by members of the language community and the wider scientific communityas comprehensive as possible, including a range of recordings of language usage from everyday conversation to narrative, oratory, ceremonial speech, and verbal art, as well as transcription, annotation and analysis of such materialsrepresented and described using standard formats, conventions and theories in order to maximise access and useflexible and cumulative, to allow data to be annotated and supplementedin archivable form to provide for long-term preservation of the datacontributions to the on-going development of documentation methodology Projects should create materials in several types of media: videoaudioimageswritten (e.g. transcription, annotation, notes, description/analysis)metadata (structured data about the primary and secondary materials) Together, these will form the language documentation and may contain a range of linguistic materials, such as: spoken language in a variety of styles and contexts, recorded (in video and/or audio), with transcriptions, translations and notes and annotationswritten texts in a variety of styles, with transcriptions, translations and annotationsrelevant sociological and cultural informationformal linguistic resources such as dictionary and sketch-grammarpedagogical materials

Eligibility

You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website. Who Can Apply?ELDP welcomes applications from language documenters of any nationality to undertake projects in any part of the world. Applicants are normally expected to have experience in language documentation work, fieldwork, and/or a suitable academic background. However, as the purpose of Small Grants is to encourage innovation, any individual or group with a keen interest in documenting an endangered language is eligible to apply.To apply to our program you need to be affiliated with a host institution such as a university, which is a registered entity and has experience in administering grants.Note that all grant funds are paid to an accredited institution which administers the grant. Attention is especially paid to these criteria: the degree of endangerment of the language(s) and the urgency of the documentation the nature of the project as a contribution to language documentation the training and preparation of the applicant(s) for the proposed project the goals of the project and whether they can be realistically achieved a clear methodology for project work a clear justification of equipment in relation to the methodology attention to ethical issues attention to archiving and the open-access requirement clear evidence of institutional support (what the institution will provide for you).

Ineligibility

The Principal Investigator must not be a director, owner, or similar, of the host institution.This means that directors, founders and heads of financial administration at the host institution cannot apply for grants.Although documentation and revitalisation are linked, projects aimed only at revitalisation without significant emphasis on documentation will not be funded.