The SSRC sponsors fellowship and grant programs on a wide range of topics, and across many different career stages. Most support goes to predissertation, dissertation, and postdoctoral fellowships, offered through annual competitions. Some programs support summer institutes and advanced research grants. Although most programs target the social sciences, many are also open to applicants from the humanities, the natural sciences, and relevant professional communities.
The American Council of Learned Societies is a private non-profit federation of 67 national scholarly organizations. The mission of the ACLS, as set forth in its constitution, is "the advancement of humanistic studies in all fields of learning in the humanities and the social sciences and the maintenance and strengthening of relations among the national societies devoted to such studies."