Renmin University hosts inaugural digital humanities festival for university students
The first International Digital Humanities Festival for University Students (IDHFUS 2026) brought students, researchers and cultural heritage professionals to Renmin University of China (RUC) in Beijing from 18 to 20 September 2026. With 192 eligible submissions from 76 universities and participants from nine countries, the festival put student work at the centre of an international exchange on digital methods, cultural heritage and historical memory.
Themed “Heritage · Memory · Horizon”, the festival was organised by RUC’s School of Information Resource Management, an iSchools member, and its Research Center for Digital Humanities. Sixty projects were selected for live presentations and 80 for poster display.
In a video address, iSchools Executive Director Slava Sterzer described digital humanities as a meeting point of data, computation and humanistic inquiry. He emphasised the importance of international collaboration among emerging scholars and encouraged participants to learn from one another. RUC Vice President Xiaoqiang Zhi highlighted the university’s work across the humanities, social sciences and artificial intelligence, and called for closer links between universities and industry.
Student presentations covered five categories: digital humanities platforms, digital memory projects, digital narratives, technology applications, and creative innovation. Teams from institutions including the University of Cambridge, RUC, Wuhan University and Nanjing University discussed their work with reviewers, who considered the research questions, evidence, technical methods, narrative design and social impact.
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