Transformative Humanities

The Transformative Humanities seek to enrich, shape, and transform lives. This means:

Connecting humanities inquiry to real-world problems
Maintaining intellectual seriousness, not sacrificing it
Working across disciplinary boundaries where needed
Combining critique with contribution
Asking not only what the humanities are, but what they are for

The Transformative Humanities are defined not by a fixed list of themes, but by an approach to research, education, and other activity: one that understands humanities work as answering to more than itself, and as having the potential to contribute beyond the university and academy.

At Durham, this approach is currently expressed with particular strength in six overlapping thematic areas:

These areas have open borders, evolve over time, and do not exhaust the possibilities within a Transformative Humanities approach.

Transformative Humanities Strands

Creativity, Culture, and Heritage

Innovative approaches to heritage: landscape, collections, visual culture, heritage science, local to global. Rooted in partner-led challenge and community engagement.

Digital Humanities

Data-driven research from machine-learning, linguistics, and stylometry, to AI and museum collections management, object analysis, and human movement and music.

Environmental Humanities

Global research, from African mega-fauna, environmental activism, literary eco-criticism, Arctic experience, heat in Asian cities, to climate change and migration.

Medical Humanities

Cross-cutting research and impact on Health and Human Experience: the Institute of Medical Humanities Discovery Research Platform, Moral Injury, Death and Life Studies.

Science-Humanities

Distinctive collaborative research on the history and practice of science: ancient mathematics, medieval astronomy and meteorology, emergence, and medical learning.

Social Justice, Communities, and Policy

High impact research on education policy - Classics for All; democratic activity – Elections and Petitions; human dignity – health, refugees, death, community-building.

Postgraduate funding opportunities

Ready to begin your PhD in 2026/27? Apply for our studentships, including the new Transformative Humanities awards. Learn more and apply.

Transformative Humanities at Durham University

Learn more about the Transformative Humanities and hear from our researchers what the Transformative Humanities framework means for them.

Visit Transformative Humanities strand pages

These six strands reflect our research excellence, bringing humanities insights to disciplinary boundaries with Science, Business, and Social Science, to community need, and sector challenges in a dynamic framework.

Transformative Humanities links together all research and related activities, and research-led learning: impact, outreach, engagement, knowledge exchange, widening participation, decolonization. It engages with all of our learning and research communities, from undergraduates to professional services, and postgraduates to academics. It provides a thinking space for sustainable research. Transformative Humanities draws across chronologies, from ancient and medieval worlds to contemporary questions and future directions.

Talking Humanities Podcast

In this episode, learn more about the establishment of game studies, film to video game adaptations, participatory games development, issues around archiving our games heritage, and how gaming can transform the way we think about culture and the humanities.

Listen to the latest Talking Humanities podcast

Get in Touch

Any questions? We are happy to help!

Contact the Transformative Humanities Team

Faculty of Arts and Humanities

Faculty Office
Elvet Riverside Block 2
New Elvet
Durham DH1 3JT