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Explore the Future Humanities Institute

The Future Humanities Institute (FHI), a UCC Futures Institute, is an ambitious and interdisciplinary research community dedicated to understanding and shaping the human dimensions of today’s most pressing global challenges. We advance this mission through our Radical Humanities Laboratory, which supports innovative and exploratory approaches to contemporary questions, and through our interdisciplinary research clusters, which focus collective expertise on key areas of cultural, social and environmental concern. Through applied imagination, methodological innovation and engagement with communities, policymakers and partners, we develop ideas that open pathways to more just, sustainable and creative futures. A key pillar of UCC’s Futures Framework, the FHI serves as both a development catalyst and an advocacy hub. It champions the bold, creative thinking that underpins the culturally impactful and socially transformative research of UCC’s arts and humanities community. Our researchers are internationally recognised for their excellence, global networks and sustained success in securing competitive funding. Their work informs public policy, enriches cultural life and drives real‑world change, ensuring that arts and humanities perspectives are actively shaping Ireland’s futures.

Our Research Groups

The Future Humanities Institute comprises the Radical Humanities Laboratory, and a range of research groupings that synergise within and across disciplines.

Spotlight On

The arts and humanities perform a key leadership role within the research ecology at UCC. I hope you enjoy exploring this small sampling of this work and achievements from 2024-2025.

Prof Yvon Bonenfant

Director Future Humanities Institute

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Working with members of villages in China’s multi-ethnic Southwest, ECura seeks out ways to empower communities to adopt digital technologies to become curators of their traditional music and dance.

Dr. Lijuan Qian, PI, ECura Project

Everyone’s a Curator:
Digitally Empowering Ethnic Minority
Music Sustainability in China

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The CASCADE team is excited to be partnering with some of the leading experts in text and cultural analytics and machine learning from across the UK and Europe.

Dr James O’Sullivan, PI, CASCADE

Computational Analysis of Semantic Change Across Different Environments. An MSCA Doctoral Network.

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MIGMOBS is a huge and ambitious project on the root of global inequalities: on the neo-colonial relations implied in a world of selective borders which dictate who can be mobile and who is excluded.

Professor Adrian Favell, PI, MIGMOBS

MIGMOBS - The Orders and Borders of Global Inequality: Migration and Mobilities in Late Capitalism

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The Future Humanities Institute (FHI), is an ambitious, interdisciplinary research community dedicated to understanding and shaping the human dimensions of today’s most pressing global challenges

Prof Yvon Bonenfant

Future Humanities Institute Director

Find Out More

News

Dr Claire Scannell, Principal Meteorological Officer at Met Éireann: Dr Catriona Duffy, Climate Services Division, Met Éireann; Dr Rosa Rogers, Research Fellow and author of Chasing the Curlew’s Call; and Rosa Kelly, Visual Artist. Image: Clare Keogh.
12 Jun 2026

Chasing the Curlew’s Call launch

A bilingual graphic novel and suite of educational resources designed to support climate change education in schools has been officially launched. Dr Rosa Rogers, Research Fellow and Lecturer in Creative Writing at the School of English and Digital Humanities, guided the graphic novel from initial community co-design through to narrative development, in collaboration with visual artist Rosa Kelly and colleagues on the Met Éireann funded TRANSLATE project.
Read on ucc.ie
05 Jun 2026

Dr Kian Mintz-Woo selected as member of the Young Academy of Ireland

Congratulation to Dr. Kian Mintz-Woo from the School of Society, Ethics and Politics and the Future Humanities Institute who has been selected as a new member of the Young Academy of Ireland (YAI), an all-island multidisciplinary network of researchers and innovators that aims to empower talented early-career researchers and future leaders.
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Pictured left to right: Dr Tatiana Vagramenko, UCC; Professor James Kapalo, UCC; and Dr Olha Oseredchuk, Global Coalition of Ukrainian Studies.
29 May 2026

UCC celebrates membership of Global Coalition for Ukrainian Studies

University College Cork (UCC) hosted an official ceremony celebrating the university’s membership of the Global Coalition for Ukrainian Studies, marking a significant milestone in the development of Ukrainian Studies in Ireland.
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Pictured left to right: Eileen Murphy, Principal Officer: Census Administration, CSO; Richard McMahon, Assistant Director General, Demography and Housing Directorate, CSO; Professor Ciara Breathnach, UCC School of History, and Dr Helene O’Keefe, UCC College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences.
26 May 2026

UCC symposium explores significance of 1926 Census

One month after their release, and following more than 40 million unique visits, Ireland’s landmark 1926 Census records have generated unprecedented public engagement and highlighted the enduring interest in the social history of early independent Ireland. To examine the significance and research potential of the records, University College Cork hosted a one-day public symposium on 25 May 2026 exploring the first full census conducted in independent Ireland.
Read on ucc.ie

Future Humanities Institute

Institiúid na nDaonnachtaí Feasta

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O'Rahilly Building (ORB) 2.20, University College Cork,

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