Research

The KNAW Humanities Cluster is devoted to innovative, state-of-the-art research in the humanities. We initiate interdisciplinary projects and develop new research methodologies. By connecting with a wide variety of researchers, research software engineers, and other stakeholders within and outside the academic community, we aim to achieve maximal societal and scholarly impact. An inter-departmental Grant Team provides our researchers with the necessary skills and experience to increase chances on external funding.

Our researchers focus on Dutch language, culture and identity, history and literature of the Netherlands, history of knowledge, and global labour history. Whenever possible, we use digital methods for which we bring together expertise from humanities, social science, computational linguistics and semantic web. 

Our Research Groups

We accommodate two research Labs (DHLab and NL-Lab) and three research institutes. Want to get to know our Research Groups? Here you’ll read about who they are and what they are working on.

Our projects

Curious to what it is we actually do? Get inspired by examples of research performed at the Humanities Cluster. More projects can be found with the different research labs and institutes.

‘In the humanities, the step to digital is not a difficult one. The digital ways to encrypt information are close to how we already worked. Even some betas are jealous of us. We are at the forefront.’ Antal van den Bosch, director Meertens Institute and member of the board of directors of the KNAW Humanities Cluster, eData, June 2017