The Yale Institute of Sacred Music supports short-term fellowships in Yale collections for research on the aural, material, visual, ritual, and textual cultures of religions. These fellowships are restricted to work in Yale’s non-circulating collections, particularly at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, the Collection of Musical Instruments, the Yale Center for British Art, the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, and the Yale University Art Gallery. The fellowships are residential for one to three months. Researchers must free themselves of most other work during the fellowship period and are expected to reside in the vicinity of Yale. Yale faculty, staff, and students are not eligible for these fellowships.

Fellowships are available both for doctoral students who are at the dissertation stage, and for any other scholars who hold the Ph.D or equivalent terminal degree. They are granted for a consecutive one- to three-month period at any time during the academic year when the collections are open to the public. For the Beinecke Library only, fellowships are restricted to Sept. 1–May 31 for post-doctoral fellows, and June 1–August 31 for doctoral candidates.