AIUCD2026 Cagliari

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Call for Papers

Digital and Public Engagement: practices and perspectives in Digital Humanities

Organized by DH UNICA – Center for Digital Humanities, University of Cagliari – Department of Humanities, Languages and Cultural Heritage

03-05 June 2026 » Cagliari

Digital Humanities today play an increasingly central role in the development of open and participatory research practices. The growing availability of advanced digital tools—from collaborative databases to artificial intelligence platforms—offers unprecedented opportunities to engage diverse audiences in the production and interpretation of knowledge. In this context, public engagement is no longer a marginal or secondary activity, but rather a structural component of research, capable of generating new forms of collaboration, enhancing data quality, and fostering broader and more inclusive dissemination of scientific results. Reflection on modes of participation, the technologies employed, research policies, and the social and cultural impacts of these processes therefore represents a crucial area of inquiry for understanding and guiding the present and future evolution of Digital Humanities.

The 15th annual AIUCD conference aims to explore the relationship between Digital Humanities and public engagement, providing a forum for theoretical models, methodologies, services, and practical applications that promote the active involvement of citizens in research and documentation processes within the Humanities. Topics of interest include experiences that, through digital technologies, enable co-creation, crowdsourcing, digital storytelling, musealization, virtual archiving, citizen science, and heritage sharing, within Open Access frameworks and with innovative approaches to scholarly communication. Proposals addressing other aspects of the broad Digital Humanities landscape are also welcome, with the aim of fostering interdisciplinary exchange and inclusive scientific dialogue.

Main Thematic Areas

DH and co-construction of knowledge with communities: challenges, methods, tools

Contributions exploring forms of active participation by heterogeneous audiences through collaborative methodologies (crowdsourcing, citizen humanities, digital public history, co-creation practices, community museums, etc.) and digital tools, including systems based on the use of artificial intelligence, are welcome. Proposals applying citizen science principles in shared knowledge production activities, such as participatory transcriptions, annotations, or mapping, are relevant. We also welcome works fostering Open Access and the adoption of FAIR principles to ensure accessibility, interoperability, and durable reusability of data and resources; as well as contributions promoting equity, accessibility, digital citizenship, and inclusion of marginalized communities through training initiatives and participatory educational practices in schools, universities, museums, MOOCs, or territorial laboratories.

Archives and editions: augmented descriptions, accessibility, and information systems

This section focuses on both theoretical and applied reflections on the opportunities and implications of processes of dematerialisation in mediation as a whole. Particular emphasis is placed on the concept of augmented description, understood as the opportunity to develop mediation tools capable of integrating heterogeneous entities, with a view to the evolution of archival information systems into intercultural systems, in line with the logics emerging from RiC and second-generation standards more broadly.
In this perspective, contributions addressing the representation and long-term organisation of both legacy cultural heritage and born-digital materials are particularly welcome. The section also invites reflections on descriptive strategies and information delivery tools, with specific reference to the creation of participatory resources, the production and management of digital scholarly editions, and the development of new models for data representation and visualization that take into account the opportunities for interaction and targeted encoding afforded by digital technologies.
Proposals addressing the preservation, management, sustainability, and transmission of digitised and born-digital collections are likewise encouraged, as are contributions focusing on the design of resilient digital infrastructures and the adoption of sustainable models for data stewardship. Finally, the section welcomes contributions that present best practices and policies aimed at ensuring open, FAIR-compliant, and long-term access, as well as the authenticity and reusability of digital cultural heritage resources.

Digital textualities: perspectives, developments, and experimentations

In this section, we welcome proposals that primarily explore innovative methods and tools for the computational study of texts, ranging from literary corpora to cultural heritage materials. Areas of interest include computational models for literary criticism, advances in computational linguistics, and applications of natural language processing (NLP). Proposals that engage with the most recent theoretical frameworks or that critically reflect on the evolution of the field are particularly encouraged. We also welcome contributions that employ Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to interpret, model, and visualize cultural heritage, both tangible and intangible (including historical sources and literary texts). This section further includes approaches based on network analysis, data visualization, and mapping techniques, especially when they help transcend existing methodological boundaries or open up new interpretive perspectives.

Data and Knowledge Representation

The section focuses on contributions addressing knowledge representation and the use of Semantic Web technologies within the digital humanities. Proposals may concern the design of ontologies, conceptual models, and knowledge graphs for cultural heritage data, as well as the creation of Linked Open Data and FAIR-compliant datasets, and studies dedicated to automated techniques for metadata extraction, named entity recognition, and semantic enrichment of cultural resources. Theoretical, methodological, or ethical reflections on these technologies and their potential for the development of interdisciplinary research are also included.

Memories, History, and digital cultural heritage

This section primarily addresses digital history, the co-generation of memory, and the digital narration of cultural heritage, including specific reflections on the preservation of the outcomes of digital research and scientific projects, also from the perspective of Open Science and with the application of FAIR principles. Contributions addressing infrastructural challenges and sustainability issues related to digitization projects and born-digital collections are also encouraged, as are proposals outlining best practices to ensure not only preservation but also effective access to cultural heritage and the removal of physical, geographical, and economic barriers.

Other contributions on Digital Humanities

Proposals are also welcome on computational methods, methodological challenges, and experimental solutions aimed at improving the accessibility, interoperability, reusability, and interpretability of data within digital research ecosystems, fostering interdisciplinary cross-pollination and open science practices.

Format and Submission Mode

The conference provides for participation through either an oral presentation (paper) or a poster.

At the proposal stage, authors are required to indicate the format in which they intend to present their contribution (oral presentation or poster). It is specified that there is no difference in quality between contributions assigned to one or the other presentation format: oral presentations are generally more suitable for theoretical and methodological reflections, including those connected to fieldwork experiences, while posters—possibly accompanied by demonstrations—are particularly appropriate for the presentation of specific projects, tools, and digital resources.

Based on the outcome of the peer review process, the Scientific Committee will assess whether the accepted contribution is more appropriately presented as an oral communication or as a poster.

All proposals must be submitted in the form of a contribution of a minimum of three and a maximum of five pages, excluding the bibliography.

Contributions must be prepared exclusively using the template of the 15th AIUCD Conference and must strictly follow the guidelines provided on the “Information for Authors” page. Submissions that do not comply with the template and the instructions will be rejected without consideration of their content.

Neither plagiarism nor self-plagiarism will be tolerated. A plagiarism detection tool may be applied to submitted contributions. Any use of artificial intelligence must be explicitly declared and specified in the submitted contribution. Contributions must be submitted exclusively in PDF format via the dedicated platform » https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/AIUCD2026/.

Submissions must be anonymized by removing authors’ names and internal references, as far as possible, without preventing an accurate evaluation of the proposal by the reviewers.

Each author may submit a maximum of two proposals as first author across the five thematic sections of the call. At the conference, a maximum of two accepted contributions may be presented by an author or co-author. In all cases, for a contribution to be included in the final program, at least the presenter must register for the conference and be a member of the Association for the year 2026.

The official languages of the conference are Italian and English. The choice of one or the other is not binding during the conference.

Instructions for authors are available at: https://www.aiucd2026.unica.it/language/en/informations-for-authors/

Proposal Evaluation Criteria

Proposals will be evaluated through a “double-blind” review process. Each contribution will be submitted to at least two reviewers. The evaluation of proposals will be conducted based on the following criteria:

  • relevance of the contribution to the conference aims;
  • innovativeness and relevance of the contribution;
  • methodological rigor;
  • critical analysis of the literature on the covered themes and pertinent and updated bibliography;
  • adequacy of the theoretical and conceptual framework regarding the reference domain;
  • quality of exposition and adequacy of the contribution’s organization;
  • critical attitude towards adopted strategies and tools in use;
  • replicability of described results (with the exception of theoretical reflections).

Publication of Proceedings

The conference proceedings will be assigned a DOI and ISBN, published online, and made freely available via the AIUCD and ‘Umanistica Digitale’ websites. They will also be published via AMSACTA: https://amsacta.unibo.it/.

Important Dates (Updating in progress)

The deadline for the submission of proposals is set for 11:59 p.m. (Italian time) on January 31, 2026. Notifications of acceptance will be communicated to authors by March 31, 2026. The camera-ready version must be submitted by April 12, 2026.

“Giuseppe Gigliozzi” Award

AIUCD offers two awards of € 300 each for early-career researchers without permanent positions (students, doctoral candidates, or research fellows) whose proposals have been accepted and presented at the conference: one award is dedicated to posters and the other to papers.

Participation guidelines are published on the Association’s website: https://www.aiucd.it/premio-gigliozzi/

For questions, templates, and further details, please consult the page: https://www.aiucd2026.unica.it/convegno/comitato-organizzatore/