Modern Endangered Archives Program: Planning Grants

Modern Endangered Archives Program: Planning Grants

Status: ACTIVE
Funder: UCLA Library
Amount: Up to US $20,000
Last Updated: January 09, 2026

Summary

The Modern Endangered Archives Program (MEAP) offers planning grants to support projects aimed at digitizing and preserving endangered archival materials from the 20th and 21st centuries. With a focus on social justice and under-documented communities, MEAP encourages applications for up to $20,000 to evaluate collections for digitization. Preference is given to materials from regions outside North America and Europe, promoting open access and digital preservation for at-risk cultural heritage.

Overview

About the Program The Modern Endangered Archives Program funds projects that document, digitize, and make accessible endangered archival materials from the 20th and 21st centuries. MEAP is dedicated to: Providing open access to cultural and historical materials from around the world as a challenge to politicized and nationalized historical narratives that minimize or silence multiple voices and perspectives.Enabling digital preservation of at-risk cultural heritage from parts of the world with limited resources for archival preservation.Expanding the capacity for digital preservation around the world and building a culture of open access that can continue after the period of the grant. Project Eligibility MEAP supports projects to organize, collect, convert and describe archival materials, existing digital assets or born-digital materials. Materials must fit within the following scope: EndangermentArchival content must be imminently at-risk due to environmental conditions, political uncertainty, inherently unsustainable media, inappropriate storage and/or communal or social change.Age of MaterialFrom the early 20th century to the present, preferably with a majority of the material dating from the 1950s or later.ContentMaterials should document history, society, culture and politics, with an emphasis on social justice, human rights and under-documented communities.Geographic FocusMaterials from regions outside North America and Europe are preferred. We encourage applications from Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America, the Middle East, Central Asia, South and Southeast Asia and Oceania. Applications from North America and Europe are eligible to apply only if resources are limited for preserving archival material and other avenues for funding have been exhausted.FormatMaterials may be in a variety of formats, including print, audio, video, photographs, ephemera and born-digital files (including but not limited to blogs, cell phone videos, website pages, 3D images, magnetic tape and social media content). Planning Grants Planning Grants can be used to evaluate or survey collections for digitization and/or curation. Successful projects create survey reports or item level inventories that document collections and prepare them for digitization. These grants are funded for up to $20,000 and for up to one year of work.

Eligibility

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