Rethinking support for the humanities

Across the UK’s research landscape, there is a growing recognition that complex challenges demand collaborative solutions. For example, HEPI recommends a joined-up approach, arguing that maximum impact lies in combining SHAPE and STEM perspectives to address problems that are not necessarily discipline-bound. This emphasis on collaborative strategy finds further articulation in the 2025 Universities UK report, “Towards a New Era of Collaboration.” It calls on universities to collaborate which will help them “go further and faster than they can alone.” In the report, Universities UK advocate cross-institutional partnerships as the most sustainable response to shared pressures. The report highlights the need for “sector-wide digital transformation,” underscored by a “shared vocabulary” that can enable collective action.

It is within this context that the Mapping the Arts and Humanities Project (MAHP) was born in 2022, to help tackle the disjointedness of the sector, to highlight the evident transdisciplinarity that collaborative research infrastructures facilitate, and to identify, locate, and support infrastructure through collaboration.  As Dr Jaideep Gupte put it in an AHRC article: “Arts and humanities infrastructure is often invisible, which means it’s hard for researchers to find one another, even harder for collaborators and policymakers to connect with research activity – and that we as funders are missing potential opportunities to support and nurture excellence.”

MAHP’s dataset was created to present the clearest indication of where research infrastructure lies and, just as crucially, where gaps remain. By surfacing the hidden structures that support humanities research, MAHP provides a foundation for more coordinated and future-oriented sector support. Yet, in the course of building this dataset, new questions arose. We encountered a proliferation of digital collectives, open-access tools, and community-driven resources that didn’t always fit neatly into our initial criteria – which led us to ask: how can we represent digital platforms (some ephemeral, others enduring, but always collaborative) effectively and accurately? What vocabularies do digital infrastructures use to define themselves, and how can we mirror that language responsibly within a shared, sector-facing dataset? As our understanding of infrastructure becomes more nuanced, so too must the tools and taxonomies we use to document it.

Mapping digital platforms in the Arts and Humanities

Since its inception, the Mapping the Arts and Humanities Project has endeavoured to map research infrastructures across the sector, identify their scope, and maximise their visibility. Equally, it has been about cataloguing resources and finding ways to trace the intellectual roots of the UK’s ever-evolving research ecosystem. For example, we’re currently exploring how to represent both active and legacy infrastructures in the dataset – a step toward recognising the full range of contributions, past and present, that continue to influence the sector’s research landscape.

But this is as much about the future as it is about the past. As the database expands, MAHP continues to explore how new research infrastructures emerge, and how collaborative, sector-wide initiatives contribute to the resilience of the humanities. Within the project, “infrastructure” is reconceptualised as malleable and dynamic, representative of the ongoing priorities of arts and humanities disciplines. This is why we are always eager to hear from our stakeholders, about what infrastructure means to them. Through the subject-specific maps, we also ask how our understanding of infrastructures might evolve to align with future opportunities across the sector, and how funders and policymakers can work with researchers, institutions, associations, and learned societies to strengthen the community’s ability to respond to real-world challenges, through collaboration and long-term support.

One area where this evolving definition of infrastructure becomes especially relevant is the digital research environment.  From the beginning, MAHP was interested in identifying “the infrastructure that supports digital research and scholarship,” to quote Professor Jane Winters in “How Do We Capture the Diversity of our Research Infrastructure.” This poses a further question: how might digital environments themselves – websites, databases, tools – be understood as infrastructure? In exploring the answer, we can draw on over a decade of international expertise, from the 2011 European Science Foundation report to recent national strategies. As AHRC Executive Chair Professor Christopher Smith noted during the Mapping the Arts and Humanities launch, “we’ve needed to think about infrastructure in different ways,” with demands on digital infrastructure specifically “increasing.” He added that the AHRC and other funders are “beginning to work more to support that kind of activity,” from data infrastructure to world-class digital labs. The AHRC’s Strategic Delivery Plan (2022-25) reinforces this shift, with its iDAH programme investing in national-scale infrastructure for digital innovation in the Arts and Humanities to ensure that research data becomes “better connected, more accessible, and protected over the long term.”

As of May 2025, UKRI’s Digital Research Infrastructure Programme has also included “data infrastructure and services, large scale compute, software, foundational tools, techniques, and services for interoperability, security and sustainability, and DRI professional skills and career pathways” in its remit. MAHP’s database contains many such gems, demonstrating the flexibility of DRI, reflecting the changing needs of the arts and humanities. From broad mission-driven infrastructures to highly specialised resources serving particular themes or subject fields, the MAHP dataset captures how such initiatives contribute to the resilience and responsiveness of the humanities sector, helping us shed light on past and emerging research priorities.

Digital infrastructure in action

Looking into the MAHP dataset itself, we see exactly the range and diversity of the humanities in adopting digital technologies. As we noted above, from its earliest stages, the project has sought to represent on the map a comprehensive range of digital initiatives that support and shape humanities research. We are looking both at the large and long-standing infrastructures as well as the experimental and specialised. What we’ve seen so far is a vivid cross-section of digital activity across the sector that reimagines scholarly practice and showcases the many different forms infrastructures can take.

For instance, among its impressively expansive remit, the Pelagios Network has led the way in building co-created open-source tools aimed at empowering end users to manipulate digital information for themselves. These include RecogitoStudio, a collaborative platform that enables researchers, librarians, and archivists to annotate texts, images and databases (including geo-annotation), and Peripleo, which is a browser-based tool for the mapping of things related to place. By “lower[ing] technical barriers and allow[ing] humanities and cultural heritage practitioners to work more effectively together,” Pelagios has provided an invaluable service to the community, a testament to what collaborative, community-driven digital infrastructure can achieve.  

We’d be remiss not to mention the Oxford Text Archive, one of the most enduring pillars of digital infrastructure in the humanities. Hosted by the Literary and Linguistic Data Service at the University of Oxford, and funded by the AHRC’s iDAH programme, the OTA has been collecting and preserving digital literary and linguistic resources since 1976. It serves as a national repository for the outputs of funded projects, as well as a key UK node in the CLARIN European research infrastructures. With thousands of texts in more than 25 languages, the OTA provides free access to high-quality resources for research and teaching, ensuring that digital data in the humanities is preserved for the long term, and most importantly remains discoverable.  

Another example of the diversity represented within the MAHP dataset is the Proceedings of the Old Bailey Online. This unique digital resource offers a fully searchable edition of nearly 200,000 trials held at London’s central criminal court between 1674 – 1913, making it the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published. Developed by the Department of History and the Digital Humanities Institute at the University of Sheffield and its partners, the Old Bailey Online stands out for its meticulous digitisation, comprehensive mark-up, and of course, free accessibility.  

Another key infrastructure represented is the invaluable Archaeology Data Service (ADS), the UK’s leading accredited repository for archaeology and historic environment data. Established in 1996, ADS has over 25 years of experience in digital preservation, providing free access, high-quality, and dependable resources to support research, teaching, and public engagement. From safeguarding excavation records and survey date to partnering on pioneering digital projects, ADS plays a vital role in sustaining archaeological knowledge for future generations.

The most recent addition to the MAHP dataset, the Medieval Murder Map demonstrates the digital humanities in action by transforming medieval coroner’s rolls into an interactive digital resource, mapping cases of violence and justice in London, York, and Oxford. By making these primary sources accessible through digital methods, the Medieval Murder Map exemplifies how digital infrastructure can serve as a blueprint for developing critical digital skills and supporting humanities pedagogy. It also helps acquaint younger generations of thinkers with the tools they need to engage critically with humanities subjects, introducing them to essential digital humanities methodologies.

These are some of the creative responses to the evolving research priorities of the humanities and represent just a small selection of the many digital initiatives currently advancing the field. The sheer range of digital projects reflects the ongoing conversations about what “infrastructure” means in our context, today.  As Rethinking Infrastructure Across the Humanities (2023) shows us, infrastructures can be understood in multiple ways. In the case of digital humanities, it becomes less about physical hardware and more about the socio-technical assemblages – platforms, tools, standards and practices – that enable research and scholarship.  

Is your infrastructure on the map?

We’re always updating the dataset to reflect the full scope of activity across the UK. If you don’t see your infrastructure listed, or if you know of a project that should be included, we’d love to hear from you.

You can check the current database here and get involved by submitting an infrastructure or reaching out to the team at [email protected].