The application portal for the next Rome Prize competition will open in August 2025. The deadline for applying will be November 1, 2025, with an extended deadline of November 15 for an additional fee. Please read on for more information about the competition.

This year the American Academy in Rome introduces a pilot Rome Prize dedicated to the Environmental Arts & Humanities, designed specifically for collaborative efforts. We encourage applications from artists and scholars working jointly on projects that help expand our understanding of the way human beings relate to, experience, or process their encounters with the natural world. Collaborative pairs may include artists of any sort (visual, digital, architectural, musical, literary, textile, performance) and scholars in any field (past, present, future, natural world, human world). The two winners of this Rome Prize will each receive a full stipend, their own individual living space, and will be invited to join the Rome Sustainable Food Program for meals. The winners will share a workspace. Applicants must demonstrate a preexisting working partnership to be considered for this fellowship and, as with all Rome Prize Fellowships, applicants have to make clear why this work needs to be done in Rome.

Applicants may apply for a full-term fellowship (about ten months) or a half-term fellowship (about five months).

The required application materials include a completed online application form and the following three documents, to be uploaded to your online application as three separate digital files:

1. Current résumé/curriculum vitae. Please include languages read and spoken and level of fluency.

2. One- to four-page proposal describing the project to be undertaken. Please be sure to address the following points/questions in your proposal:

• How will the proposed project and your own professional development will benefit from a residency within a multidisciplinary community in Rome?
• What guides or motivates your work?
• Rome is a modern city powerfully stamped by the material remains of the past. Is this past important to your present? If so, why?
• What, if any, resources in Rome or Italy will be significant to the completion of your proposed project?
• What kind of workspace do you need in Rome?

Please include bibliographical notes for any sources cited (not counted toward the four-page limit). Your proposal should be double-spaced with 10- to 12-point typeface and one-inch margins.

3. Work sample. If your work is primarily text based, please submit a writing sample–published or unpublished–of up to twenty pages. Be sure to include a bibliography and footnotes (not counted toward the page limit). If your work is a mixture of text and images, sound, and/or video, please submit a portfolio of up to forty pages with links to online video and audio files.

Also needed are three reference letters from professionals acquainted with you and your work. Recommenders will be asked to submit their letters electronically through our online system.

Finally, you must submit an application fee paid by credit card through our online payment option or by check or money order made payable to American Academy in Rome and mailed to the following address: 

American Academy in Rome
Attention: Environmental Arts & Humanities
535 West 22nd Street, Third Floor
New York, NY 10011

The American Academy in Rome hosted three in-person information sessions about the Rome Prize in 2024. The first took place at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia on September 24. The second was presented at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence on October 8. The third happened at Howard University in Washington, DC, on October 17.

AAR also presented two general online information sessions on Zoom on September 23 and October 15. A third virtual meeting, focused only on landscape architecture, took place on October 16. You can watch these hour-long videos of the Academy’s YouTube channel.

These information sessions give prospective applicants a general overview of the Rome Prize application process and a look into the experience of living in the American Academy’s unique residential community in Rome.