The Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO) invites submissions for its annual conference, DH2027, to be held at the University of Galway, Ireland, from June 28 to July 3, 2027.
Download the Call for Proposals as a .pdf file.
Conference Theme: “Creativity”
Creativity has always been part of digital humanities. It is present in the works and practices we study as well as in the ways we build collections, design tools, model data, make comparisons, create editions, develop visualisations and interpret cultural materials. Digital humanities research often depends on finding new ways to work with materials that do not fit easily into existing categories or methods.
For DH2027, we invite the community to think about creativity in this broad sense. What does creativity mean when humanistic work is increasingly carried out with computational methods, digital media and artificial intelligence? How are new forms of cultural expression changing what we study and how we study it? And where does creativity lie in research practices that may appear, at first sight, to be mainly technical or analytical? Creativity also takes place under constraint. Languages, cultural traditions, datasets, standards, platforms, infrastructures, copyright, access, labour, institutional settings and environmental costs all influence what can be made, studied, represented and shared. Such constraints can limit creative possibilities, but they can also lead to new methods and different ways of seeing cultural materials.
The theme therefore invites work on creativity as an object of study, a research practice and a feature of the digital environments in which humanities scholarship now takes place. We particularly welcome proposals connected with the following areas, while recognising that they overlap and that many projects will move between them:
1. Computational creativity
How are computational systems changing ideas and practices of creativity? We welcome work on generative AI, computational models of creativity, human-AI collaboration, algorithmic authorship, machine-generated cultural forms, creative uses of language and multimodal models, and ways of evaluating computational and algorithmic creativity. We also invite critical and historical work on automation, authorship, originality, imitation and the cultural assumptions built into systems described as creative.
2. Creative methods and interpretation
Creativity is also part of the research process itself. Digital humanities scholars develop new ways of organising evidence, bringing different sources together, modelling cultural phenomena and making patterns or relationships visible. We invite proposals that reflect on methodological invention as well as projects that use established methods in unexpected ways.
3. Creative engagements with cultural heritage
Digital methods have opened new possibilities for working with cultural heritage, from preservation and reconstruction to reuse, reinterpretation and public engagement. We invite work that asks how digital approaches can create new relationships with archives, collections, monuments, texts, objects and forms of cultural memory, while remaining attentive to questions of ownership, access, context, and responsibility.
4. Digital arts
DH2027 welcomes research and practice at the intersection of the humanities, art and digital media. This includes work that creates digital art as well as work that studies the forms, histories, communities and technologies through which digital art is produced and experienced.
5. Creative technologies
Digital humanities has a long history of making, adapting and repurposing technologies rather than simply using tools as they are given. We invite proposals that explore the creative development and use of technologies for humanities research, teaching, cultural work, and public engagement.
These areas are intended as invitations. DH2027 welcomes work across the full range of digital humanities, including proposals that do not address the conference theme directly.
Call for Submissions
Languages
Proposals are requested to be submitted and presented in English to ensure adequate peer review and mutual understanding.
Submission and presentation formats
Proposals may be submitted for the following formats:
- Long papers (2500-3000 words): Suited for substantial, completed, and previously unpublished research; reports on developing significant new methodologies or digital resources; and/or rigorous theoretical, speculative, or critical discussions. Presentations are typically 20 minutes. Note that long papers will be published as a separate proceedings volume in the Anthology of Computers and the Humanities.
- Short papers (1000-1250 words): Appropriate for reporting on experiments, work in progress, exploratory research, and newly conceived tools or software in early stages of development. Presentations are typically 10 minutes.
- Poster submissions (500-750 words): For presenting work on any relevant topic, or offering demonstrations of projects, tools, artwork, creative visualizations, and software in various stages of development.
- Pre-conference Workshops or Mini-conferences: See below.
Note that short paper, poster, workshop and mini-conference submissions will be published in the well-established ‘Book of Abstracts’ format. The word count for all formats includes captions, but not table contents and references. It is acceptable to place additional tables or figures in an appendix. Authors need to disclose any use of generative AI when performing their research or when preparing their submission. This disclosure statement does not count towards the word count. For initial submission in all formats, we simply expect a PDF file. More details and other questions can be found in the DH2027 FAQ.
Special Tracks
- Technical Track: Authors may designate their submission as part of the Technical Track. Submissions in this track, in line with the mission of the DHTech SIG, should be focused on the development, sustainability, and reuse of software and infrastructures in DH projects or for the DH community. These proposals will be reviewed by members of the DHTech SIG. Submissions following this designation will benefit from the SIG’s expertise in evaluating technical work.
- Digital Art(s) Track: Authors may designate their submission as part of the Digital Arts Track. Submissions in this track, in line with DH2027’s attention to creativity as a research practice and a feature of digital environments, should be focused on the creation, study and critical reflection on digital art, including its forms, histories, communities, technologies and modes of production and experience. Proposals may take the form of performances, installations, interactive or generative works, data-driven artworks, critical making projects or presentations, AI-mediated collaborations or LLM-informed experimentation, speculative design pieces or conference-scale interventions that treat D(H) infrastructures, standards, datasets and platforms as creative materials.
Pre-conference Formats
- Workshops are intensive introductions to specific techniques, software packages, or theoretical approaches. Workshops last half a day and can be held in person or online. Proposals should include an agenda (focusing on learning outcomes, target audience, and instructor expertise). The abstracts should be 1000-1250 words.
- Mini-conferences are day-long gatherings that do not fit the workshop format. For example, a mini-conference could be a THATCamp, hackathon, maker fair, or a series of events at a local venue. The abstracts should be 1000-1250 words.
Note on Review Expectations
As an interdisciplinary and international conference, scholars come to DH from a wide range of disciplinary and cultural contexts. As a result, some degree of confusion regarding the expectations for submissions is not uncommon.
Proposals for the DH conference are expected to be relatively short but complete summaries of the presentation to be given, with different formats offered for work at different stages of completeness.
For all submission types, authors are expected to include a literature review (with citations and a list of references) to situate the work within the relevant disciplinary context and ground the scholarly contribution of the work.
For long papers the research should be sufficiently completed for authors to present substantial findings and the scholarly significance of the results in their submission. Work where the outcomes are still anticipated are better suited for the short paper or poster formats.
Important Dates
- Submissions accepted from: October 7, 2026, 00:00 AM (Irish time)
- Deadline for submissions: November 20, 2026, 11:59 PM (AoE)
- Notification of acceptances: February 2027
- Submission of final versions: March 2027
- Registration open: March 2027
Submission Portal
Proposals must be submitted via ConfTool:
https://www.conftool.pro/dh2027/
Hybrid Conference Model
DH2027 is planned as a partly hybrid conference. Accepted authors will be asked their preference to attend in-person or online for scheduling purposes. We aim to facilitate meaningful participation for both in-person and remote attendees.
Review Process and Criteria
Submissions will undergo an open review process. Thus, authors’ identities will be visible to reviewers, and reviewers’ identities will be disclosed to submitters. This means there is no need to remove any information which would serve to identify the authors.
Reviewers will assess proposals based on ADHO’s established criteria as follows. Please read the ADHO blog post on the review criteria, especially the discussion on ADHO’s understanding of diversity.
- [1, 20%] Does the submission include a sufficient description of the current state of knowledge and best practices in the area(s) relevant to the work, and is that description backed up by useful references?
- [2a, 20%] Does the work described in the submission go beyond the current state of knowledge and best practices in the areas(s) relevant to the work? This may concern method, approach, application domain, or findings.
- [2b, 20%, workshops] Does the submission describe the contents of the workshop (topics, issues, methods, tools) in sufficient detail for readers to understand what will be taught?
- [3a, 20%] Does the submission describe its approach or method with sufficient detail for readers to understand what was done and why it was done, within the limitations of the abstract format?
- [3b, 20%, workshops] Does the submission describe its didactical approach, the materials to be used, and the progression of topics over the course of the workshop with sufficient detail for readers to understand how the workshop will be taught?
- [4, 15%] Does the submission support diversity, in the sense that it describes work that increases the range of topics, approaches and perspectives presented at the DH conference, and/or does it give adequate recognition to a broad range of relevant scholarly work, including by members of disadvantaged or under-represented groups?
- [5, 15%] Is the submission well-structured and clearly written in a way that supports readers in understanding the submission?
Frequently Asked Questions
Please see the relevant sections in the DH2027-FAQ on the conference website.