Technology and digitization profoundly shape the world we live in, and the stakes are high. This open-access volume addresses some of the most urgent challenges. It constitutes the proceedings of the First Interdisciplinary Science and Research Conference on Digital Humanism, DIGHUM-RES 2025, run by Ludger Hagedorn (IWM), Ute Schmid (University of Bamberg), Susan Winter (University of Maryland College), and Stefan Woltran (TU Wien) as responsible conference chairs and editors of the volume.
The conference call received a total of 98 submissions, of which 42 were accepted after a careful review process. Peer review was double-blind, with 81 program committee members from different disciplines contributing to the in-depth review. The 42 papers (30 long papers, 12 short papers) collected in the volume contribute to the understanding of the fundamental changes our world is undergoing at this moment. They examine new opportunities enabled by technological advances as well as the tremendous risks inherent in digitization, envisaging the prospects for human life in the digitized era. Issues addressed revolve around digitalization and its entanglement with contemporary social, political, economic, and cultural developments—from algorithmic governance and regulation to the role of AI in popular culture, and to the ever-increasing permeation of our lives with digital devices.
The recent rise of AI has further triggered a heightened awareness of the far-reaching impact of digital technologies, ranging from numerous beneficial uses to worrisome concerns for open democratic societies and the lives of their citizens. Technological change is expanding the boundaries of what is possible.
Addressing these challenges requires interdisciplinary collaboration between a wide range of domains, from computer science to the humanities. Accordingly, the contributions assembled here explore multiple scientific aspects of the complex interplay between humans and machines in the digitized age. Different research methodologies and approaches attest to the capacity of Digital Humanism research to break disciplinary silos and reflect on the impact of digitization on the world today and, possibly, tomorrow. All papers were presented at the first Digital Humanism – Interdisciplinary Science and Research Conference, held in Vienna, Austria, on November 20-21, 2025.
The conference and the corresponding volume were made possible due to a close collaboration of the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), Vienna, and the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien). Special thanks go to the Federal Ministry for Innovation, Mobility, and Infrastructure (BMIMI) of the Republic of Austria for its kind support of the IWM’s Digital Humanism Fellowship program.
Digital Humanism - First Interdisciplinary Science and Research Conference, DIGHUM 2025, Vienna, Austria, November 20–21, 2025, Proceedings
Publishing house: Springer Cham
Year: 2025
ISBN (or DOI): 978-3-032-11107-4
Download the open-access book PDF or EPUB here.
