“Digital Humanities 2025” in Lisbon: accessibility, citizenship and pavo cristatus

The article presents the observations of the Digital Humanities 2025 congress, which took place in Lisbon. The Digital Humanities Congress is held annually by the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO). Digital humanities is an area of scholarly activity at the intersection of computing or digital technologies and the disciplines of the humanities. The role and importance of historical issues in this interdisciplinary field is growing every year. In 2025, even the keynote presentation was devoted to the use of digital technologies in historical research. The annual ADHO Digital Humanities Conference is the central and largest event of the international Digital Humanities community that brings together scholars from all over the world, providing them with an opportunity to exchange ideas and research results, as well as promoting future collaboration. The article pays special attention to the historical issues presented at the congress, both in section sessions and poster presentations. Brief observations are presented on the key features of the development of DH. In 2025, one can notice a continuing trend towards an increase in historical papers at the congress – interest in historical sources, historical resources, and issues of virtual reconstruction of the past is growing. The theme of the 2025 conference – “Accessibility and Citizenship” – emphasizes two interrelated principles of the DH-community today. The principle of accessibility means the intentional elimination of all possible barriers (technical, economic, linguistic, educational) to the creation, use, distribution and understanding of digital humanities projects, in fact, it is an ethical foundation that transforms DH from an elite research practice into a tool for truly open, inclusive and democratic collaboration with cultural heritage and the humanities. If accessibility is a prerequisite, then citizenship is the next step to active, conscious, responsible and transformative participation in the digital space based on this accessibility.

digital humanities, ADHO, historical information science, digital history, digital humanities projects, digital research infrastructures, accessibility, citizenship, artificial intelligence, retrieval-augmented generation