The Arts Endowment’s support of a project may start on May 1, 2018, or any time thereafter.

Grants generally may cover a period of performance of up to two years, with an exception for projects that include primary data collection as part of the proposed activity.

Projects

credit:

that include primary data collection may request up to three years.

Projects that extend beyond one year will be required to submit an annual progress report.

A grantee may not receive more than one National Endowment for the Arts grant for the same project during the same period of performance.

Program Description In September 2012, the National Endowment for the Arts' (NEA) Office of Research & Analysis published a five-year research agenda, supported by a system map and measurement model.

Titled How Art Works, the report offers a framework for studying research topics critical to a broader public understanding of the arts' value and/or impact for individuals and communities.

In December 2016, the NEA’s research office updated its five-year agenda for 2017-2021, which reflects a tighter focus on Arts Participation and Arts/Cultural Assets as essential research topics.

Arts Participation, in the new agenda, remains inclusive of various modes of participation and specific arts activities.

These modes are:
attending arts events; reading literature; creating or performing art; consuming art via electronic media; and learning in the arts.

Arts/Cultural Assets denotes artists and arts workers, arts venues and platforms, and arts organizations and industries.

The NEA is interested in research seeking to identify and to examine:
• Factors that enhance or inhibit Arts Participation or Arts/Cultural Assets; • Detailed characteristics of Arts Participation or Arts Cultural/Assets, and their interrelationships; • Individual-level outcomes of Arts Participation, including those corresponding with the following domains:
o social and emotional well-being o creativity, cognition, and learning o physiological processes of health and healing; and • Societal or community-level outcomes, including those corresponding with the following domains:
o civic and corporate innovation o attraction for neighborhoods and businesses o national and/or state-level economic growth