Who funds anthropology research?

We count 91 funded anthropology projects, active between 2020 and 2032, from 4 funders. The most came from EU · ERC (40 projects), EU · MSCA (33 projects) and Wellcome (11 projects). The median award is $1.2M, across the 88 of 91 projects that list an amount.

Funded projects

91

Funders

4

Median award

$1.2M

Open calls now

2

Top funders of anthropology research

Projects whose title or summary mentions anthropology. Median award: of the projects that list an amount, in US dollars; “—” when fewer than 3 do.

Open anthropology funding calls

2 open calls mention anthropology today.

• SfAA Peter Kong-ming New Student Research Award
  Society for Applied AnthropologyUp to $3,000Deadline: November 30, 2026 ·
• Tribal Colleges and Universities Program (TCUP)
  U.S. National Science Foundation$100,000 – $3,500,000Deadline: January 11, 2027 ·
  Real odds: About 1 in 3 funded (40% · NSF Division of Equity for Excellence in STEM (EES), all proposals, FY2024)

Real odds

• About 1 in 3 funded · 40% · NSF Division of Equity for Excellence in STEM (EES), all proposals, FY2024 · NSF funding rates (directorate page)

Published success rates for the programs behind the open calls above: the share of applications the funder funded, program-wide, not for this topic.

Forecast: announced, not open yet

1 forecast call on anthropology. Funders publish forecasts before a call opens; you can't apply to these yet, and dates can change.

• ForecastSfAA/AAA Margaret Mead Award
  Society for Applied AnthropologyNot specifiedOpening date not announced

Funded anthropology projects

A sample, latest start first, at most three per program.

• CRITICAL SEEING: using film, ethnographic, and deliberative methods to form multimodal representations of ICU decision-making dispute, and to model practices of conflict reduction
  Wellcome · £3,675,059 · ends 2032
• An ethnography of joy, satisfaction and challenge: subjective wellbeing and occupational justice for disabled children and youth in South Africa
  Wellcome · £315,905 · ends 2030
• Co-Creative MiND: The Inner Lifeworlds of MND
  Wellcome · £2,665,556 · ends 2030
• Biocultural Transmissions of Obesity across Generations in the Digital Era
  EU · Widening participation and spreading excellence · ends 2030
• A Century of Propertising Plants: examining the role of intellectual property law in protecting biodiversity and food security
  UKRI · UKRI FLF · £855,698 · ends 2029
• The Sustainable Heritage Initiative
  UKRI · UKRI FLF · £595,547 · ends 2029
• EPSCoR Research Fellows: NSF Tracking Human Environment Dynamics in the Southern Plains During the Late Pleistocene Holocene Through Dental Ecometrics of Small Herbivorous Mammals
  NSF · Office of the Director · $299,999 · ends 2028
• Nambawan Piksa Bilong Papua New Guinea / Papua New Guinea's First Films: Connecting Moving Images from 1904 to Descendant Communities Today
  UKRI · AHRC · £668,490 · ends 2028
• Exploring the Grey Zone: A Biopsychosocial Approach to Religious Delusions and Conspiracy Beliefs
  UKRI · UKRI CRCRM · £995,065 · ends 2027
• Patient Voices from Ancient Egypt
  EU · MSCA · €236,340 · 2027–2029 · UPPSALA UNIVERSITET

How we count

Funded projects come from public award records (NIH RePORTER, NSF, EU CORDIS, UKRI Gateway to Research, Wellcome, the Gates Foundation, DOE, NASA and USDA NIFA) whose title or summary matches “anthropology or ethnographic”. NIH lists each budget year separately; one project counts once. Amounts are as the funder lists them; medians use only projects that list one, in US dollars. Open calls and forecasts are from our listings of October 28, 2026. A project can mention a topic without being mainly about it, so treat the counts as a guide to who funds the area.