Humanities Innovation Week 2025:
An event to find inspiration and connect
From November 3 to 7, 2025, the Humanities Lab at the University of San Sebastián held the Humanities Innovation Week, an event that brought together more than 30 speakers from Chile and around the world</ b> to highlight cutting-edge projects and initiatives that are transforming the way history, the arts, philosophy, literature, and heritage are taught, researched, and communicated. Academics, educators, professionals, and independent entrepreneurs participated in a week-long event unprecedented in Chile, with a focus on continuity and international outreach.
In a rapidly changing landscape, the Week highlighted a key conviction: innovation in the humanities—and the humanities for innovation— open up new professional, collaborative, and creative paths. Through contemporary methodologies and digital tools, it is now possible to expand audiences, create immersive experiences, strengthen cultural mediation, and connect heritage with diverse communities. As José Manuel Cerda, director of the Humanities Lab, noted, this initiative also emerged as a response to the crisis facing the humanities, understood not merely as a diagnosis but as an opportunity to reimagine their relevance and significance in the 21st century.
The program covered topics such as digital humanities, heritage management and preservation, network analysis and data visualization, archival digitization, historical storytelling, outreach on digital platforms, and the use of virtual reality for teaching. These themes were organized around an interdisciplinary approach that bridges education, communications, technology, and heritage.
Featured program by session
Monday, Day 3: Heritage, Outreach, and Technologies for Preservation and Storytelling
The week began with opening remarks by Klaus Droste, dean of the School of Psychology and Humanities, and José Manuel Cerda, director of the USS Humanities Laboratory. The day continued with presentations on heritage management, cultural mediation in early childhood, technological preservation, and applied digital humanities, including discussions on Magellan and Elcano’s first circumnavigation of the globe and historical outreach projects.
Tuesday, the 4th: Digital Humanities in Latin America
The focus was on the Digital Humanities ecosystem, featuring a discussion on its regional development and a series of presentations on historical data, audio and community projects, network visualization with Gephi, archival digitization, and computational text analysis, as well as case studies applied to the Chilean cultural press and colonial literature.
Wednesday, the 5th: Educational Innovation and Immersive Experiences
The event explored innovation in teaching, ranging from the transition “from the lectern to the screen” to immersive experiences with Virtual Reality to bring the ancient world to life and teach history. It also included a discussion on public engagement and the launch of the book The Epic of Chile.
Thursday, the 6th: Promotion, Digital Platforms, and Contemporary Challenges
Initiatives were presented that bring together science and the humanities, historical communication projects in digital formats, and reflections on the balance between storytelling and academic rigor. In addition, scholars from Alberto Hurtado University participated, sharing their experiences with institutional innovation, online sources for new narratives in art history, and platforms for reader assessment and training, along with projects involving music and digital archives. The event concluded with a roundtable discussion on current challenges in rethinking the humanities and their dissemination.
Friday, the 7th: Education and Training
The Innovation Week concluded with a Digital Humanities Workshop and customized training sessions for USS faculty members.
Projection
Humanities Innovation Week highlighted a growing field: projects that integrate technology, research, and outreach to expand the public impact of humanities work. The goal for the coming years is to grow and establish itself as a leader in Humanities innovation in Chile and around the world, connecting those who are developing new responses to the challenges of modernity.
Download the program below:
