The DH Landscape

The UK and Ireland digital humanities community is characterised by a wealth of expertise, infrastructure, and resources spread across universities and GLAM organisations. Yet, as the report demonstrates, this richness can sometimes be undermined by fragmentation, duplication of effort, and uneven access to opportunities – particularly for early career researchers and those working across institutional or national boundaries.

Claire’s work focuses on understanding what practitioners themselves feel would most improve community engagement, visibility, and sustainability. The recommendations are grounded in this evidence and are intended to be actionable both for the Association and for the wider DH community.

Key recommendations

The report sets out several interconnected recommendations, including:

• Supporting and expanding existing digital humanities infrastructures, such as DARIAH’s Course Registry and the Software Sustainability Institute’s Collaborations Workshop, to reduce duplication and build on work that already has strong community trust.
• Hosting more virtual and regional events, with particular emphasis on networking opportunities and workshops focused on sharing methodological and pedagogical best practices.
• Developing a more strategic social media presence.
• Expanding the fellowship programme and Annual Event bursaries, especially to support early career researchers and to encourage collaborative work.
• Introducing small, collaborative grants designed to foster research partnerships across the UK and Ireland and between HEIs and GLAM organisations.
• Publishing white papers that showcase excellent research emerging from the community, support advocacy efforts, and create meaningful writing opportunities for students and ECRs.

Each recommendation is discussed in detail in the full report, with clear explanations of how and why they emerged from the consultation process. You can read the full report here:

Looking ahead

This report is not intended as an endpoint, but as a starting point for further discussion and action. It provides a strong evidence base to inform future decisions by the Association, while offering ideas that institutions and individuals may wish to take forward in their own contexts. We will be carrying on this work with future Advocacy and Engagement fellows, Community Interest Groups and other initiatives over the next few years.

Claire also put together a report to highlight the work of Dr Sally Bushell (Lancaster University) and her team on ‘Litcraft’, an engagement project which builds scale models of literary worlds in Minecraft to re-engage children with reading through play. You can also read Claire’s Litcraft report and find out more about the Litcraft project on their website.

We are grateful to Claire Carroll for her thoughtful work on this project and for laying such a strong foundation for future advocacy and engagement activity. Claire would also like to thank those who contributed their time and expertise to her research and noted the creativity and generosity of the DH community.

We encourage members of the community to read the full report, reflect on its recommendations, and join us in shaping the next phase of digital humanities collaboration across the UK and Ireland.