Anti-Racist Digital Research Institute

The Anti-Racist Digital Research Institute (ARDRI) is a collaborative summer institute and mini-grant program that helps develop research projects committed to using ethical and reparative frameworks that counteract historical and ongoing harm, particularly focusing on communities disproportionately affected by historic and systemic racism and neglect.

ARDRI aims to foster a learning community of anti-racist digital researchers and to support that community in learning from each other and sharing their work with the broader community. The institute is designed to deliver knowledge and resources to help scholars build new skills in anti-racist research methods and digital methods so they can advance their research projects.

Read details about what the program provides, including the institute structure and expected time commitment.

Projects

We are looking for project ideas that combine anti-racist research goals with digital scholarship and seek to effect structural change at the university and beyond. Early stage projects or project ideas are encouraged to apply. Come with a project idea, we’ll help you figure out how to make it a reality.

Project ideas can take a broad range of forms, from collecting community interviews to textual analysis of historical documents to providing access to data in interesting ways, such as digital maps or collections. Scholars with collaborative, multi-generational, or community-centered research ideas are highly encouraged to apply. See examples of previously funded projects.

Eligibility

The institute is open to University of Michigan faculty (tenure track, clinical faculty, lecturers, librarians, archivists, and curators), graduate students, post-doctoral researchers, and staff from any U-M campus in the fields of humanities, arts, and the humanistic social sciences.

Application process

Submissions are open from November 13 through December 19, 2025.

Visit how to apply for information about submitting a project proposal, and how we evaluate them.

If you have questions about the institute or application process, please email library-ds@umich.edu.

The initiative is a combined effort of the U-M Library, LSA Technology Services, and National Center for Institutional Diversity’s Anti-Racism Collaborative. We are committed to growing and fostering a community of digitally-minded anti-racist researchers at the University of Michigan and beyond.