Summer School “Digital tools for Humanists” 2026
In the frame of the Summer Schools organized by the University of Pisa, under the direction of the “Laboratorio di Cultura Digitale” (Laboratory for Digital Culture, see site in Italian), the nineth edition of the Summer School “Digital Tools for Humanists” will be held in Pisa from May 25 to May 30 2026, both in presence and online via Microsoft Teams.
The School is addressing all those interested in getting basic and working knowledge of some of the digital tools available today to scholars in many different fields of the Humanities. The edition of 2026 will focus on basic tools for Natural Language Processing (NLP), Digital Philology, Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and use of AI in those fields.
“AI tools enhance NLP by improving text analysis, translation, and semantic understanding, enabling faster and more accurate processing of large linguistic datasets. In digital philology and GIS, they support the preservation, interpretation, and spatial visualization of cultural and historical data, uncovering new patterns and insights that were previously inaccessible.”
The paragraph above is the answer of ChatGPT (without any editing) to the prompt “summarize in two sentences the advantages and benefits of using AI tools in the fields of NLP, digital philology and GIS”. It really captures the essence of the use of AI in those fields, and hopefully some of those benefits will become more apparent during the School.
The School will maintain its character of being “practice oriented”, and all the afternoons will be dedicated to hands-on laboratories. The minimum requirement for enrolling in the School is a Bachelor degree, in any discipline. Graduate students and professionals in the Humanities, such as PhD students, librarians, teachers, researchers, archivists are the perspective participants of the School. In order to get the maximum benefit from the School, it is recommended to all attendees to bring their own Personal Computer. No specific pre-requisites are requested, except for some familiarity in the use of computers and, of course, a good interest in Digital Humanities.
Digital Tools for Humanists – Fundamentals and AI will be held from May 25 to May 30 (go to program). The registration fee for attending the School is 500 Euros (go to registration procedure). The University of Pisa, upon request, will issue a certificate of 3 credits (ECTS, the European Credit Transfer System). It will be the responsibility of the attendees to have this certificate recognized at their own Institution.
The School is under the auspices of CLARIN-IT, the Italian node of CLARIN, the ERIC Common Language Resources and Technology Infrastructure, aiming to make digital language resources available to scholars, researchers, students and citizen-scientists from all disciplines, especially in the humanities and social sciences, through single sign-on access.
The School is also under the auspices of AIUCD, the Italian Association for Digital Humanities and Culture, of AIPH, the Italian Association od Public History and of CISPH, the Interuniversity Centre for Research and Development of Public History
The number of participants at the Schools is limited, and registrations will be accepted until there are available seats.
DEADLINE: April 15th 2026