University of California Humanities Research Institute

**About** The University of California Humanities Research Institute facilitates experimental, interdisciplinary humanities scholarship through partnerships, research initiatives, and competitive grants. **[Trajectories](https://uchri.org/about#collapse-history)** UCHRI was founded by UC President David Gardner in 1987 as a centerpiece of the University of California’s system-wide investment in humanities research. Over the past three decades UCHRI has promoted innovation and leadership in the practice and sharing of collaborative humanistic research across all 10 UC campuses, nationally, and globally. Murray Krieger, the Institute’s founding director, established the residential research groups that continue to exemplify UCHRI’s commitment to collaborative interdisciplinarity. Then, as now, these engagements convened experts to produce scholarship on a variety of contemporary and historical topics transcending individual research interests. The success of this work inspired an expanded portfolio of competitive support, including working groups and workshops, conferences and seminars, public and digital humanities projects, as well as other collaborative engagements across a vast range of topics. UCHRI has also driven national and international partnerships and initiatives. In 1988, a spring conference at the Institute led to the founding of the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI). The Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Alliance and Collaboratory (HASTAC) also began with gatherings at UCHRI, expanding out as a partnership between UCHRI and Duke University in 2002. It remains a productive and popular academic social network. The Seminar on Experimental Critical Theory (SECT) began annually at UCHRI in 2004, holding its first international forum in China in 2009. And the UC Humanities Network, a collaboration between humanities centers and departments on all UC campuses, began in 2009. Today, with support from Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Modern Language Association, the Henry Luce Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, among others, UCHRI continues to promote humanistic collaboration through partnerships and conversations around workforce, social heterogeneity, and the future of the university.