Asian Cultural Council (ACC) Fellowships and Grants
Julie McMillan, Pareena Lin, and Lai Yi Ohlsen in Benjamin Akio KIMITCH’s (ACC 2024) Tiger Hands at The Shed, 2022 | Photo by Erin Baiano.
2027 ACC Fellowships and Grants
The Asian Cultural Council (ACC) is pleased to announce the open call for the 2027 Grant Cycle. Applications will be accepted from October 1 through November 10, 2026, with letters of recommendation due November 16.
Prospective applicants are encouraged to review the guidelines below before beginning an application. These guidelines cover ACC’s mission and grantmaking priorities, as well as detailed information on available grant types, eligibility requirements, application procedures, and frequently asked questions.
Application and Selection Timeline
ACC's 2027 Grants Cycle will follow the timeline below.
Call for Applications Opens: October 1, 2026, at 9:59 AM U.S. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)
Call for Applications Closes: November 10, 2026, at 9:59 AM U.S. Eastern Standard Time (EST)
Letters of Recommendation Due: November 16, 2026, at 9:59 AM U.S. EST
Review and Selection Process: November 2026 – April 2027
Notifications to Applicants: Mid-May 2027
Grant Period (When ACC-funded travel and activities must take place): August 1, 2027 – December 31, 2028
General Eligibility Criteria and Requirements
Applicants for an ACC fellowship or grant must meet the general eligibility criteria and requirements included below. In addition to these, each fellowship and grant program has additional requirements, which you can find in the relevant program-specific guidelines (see under “Fellowship and Grant Opportunities”).
Fellowship and Grant Opportunities
ACC offers four distinct fellowship and grant types to support immersive cultural exchange. Please carefully review the guidelines below to learn more about our fellowships and grants and open the relevant “Apply now” text to review instructions and begin an application. Please also note that applicants can only apply for one grant type per cycle.
New York Fellowship
Over a six-month period, a diverse cohort of artists, scholars, and arts professionals from Asia live in the United States and engage with a new cultural landscape, using this immersive experience to broaden their perspectives and inform the development of their artistic practices. This rare pause from daily life and work—shared with peers across disciplines—offers space for reflection, exploration, and meaningful exchange, free from the pressure to produce or present work.
Individual Fellowship
With a flexible, often shorter timeframe of one to six months, the Individual Fellowship gives artists, scholars, and arts professionals from Asia and the U.S. the opportunity to pursue research, self-directed exploration and cultural immersion experiences in a new or less familiar environment, fostering peer-to-peer dialogue, collaboration, and knowledge-sharing.
An Individual Fellowship is not a residency to produce new work, a fund to attend or participate in a single conference or event (i.e. not a travel grant), or an individual’s public relations tour. Rather, Individual Fellows explore questions and activities that enable and promote cultural immersion. These experiences and relationships lead to invaluable creative inspiration, collaborative opportunities, and a more global and nuanced perspective.
Graduate Fellowship
ACC gives a small number of Graduate Fellowship grants to support the travel and living expenses of graduate students from Asia who choose to study in the U.S. because comparable programs are not available or underrepresented in their home country, territory, or region.
While the grant is academic by nature, by studying in a less familiar environment, fellows are exposed to new ideas beyond the classroom. The Graduate Fellowship program aims to advance international cultural exchange and to enrich and broaden scholarly narratives and critical discourse by increasing access to academic training in the arts and cultural fields.
Organization Grant
The ACC Organization Grant program enables arts and culture organizations in Asia and the U.S. to pursue activities that foster meaningful cultural exchange for their staff, communities, and collaborators. The grant may support an organization’s participants to travel to another country, territory, or region for their activities and/or invite and host activity participants in the country, territory, or region where the organization is based.
Deadlines
Applications must be submitted by November 10, 2026, at 9:59 AM Eastern Time (ET). Recommenders must submit their letters by November 16, at 9:59 AM ET. Learn more about the letter of recommendation requirements further below. As applicants must submit their application before their recommender can upload their letter, we encourage you to apply as soon as possible.
