Edinburgh Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH)

The work of IASH is inspired by the challenge that to understand the world properly we need humanities research. Here at IASH we understand the word ‘humanities’ in the broadest sense to include both ‘pure’ and ‘applied’ humanities. In other words, we include also the social sciences, and legal research. We encompass all forms of enquiry into the human condition, or attempts to further human knowledge, excluding only those which need the support of laboratories. Research @ IASH will help us to understand who we are, where we come from, how we live together, and where we might go in the future.

Interdisciplinarity is particularly important. We believe that it is interdisciplinary research and dialogues between scholars of different backgrounds which will open up new spaces for research in the future. We offer a space where critical thinking can be free to go beyond the traditional compartmentalisations and cross disciplinary boundaries, in a spirit of innovation and experimentation.

We encourage work that is inventive and exploratory, and especially work that forges links between the humanities and the interpretive or historical social sciences, and between the humanities in this broad sense and the medical, natural and technological sciences.

The Institute welcomes visiting researchers from across the world. Since 1970, over 1000 Fellows have stepped through our doors. Up to 30 researchers are in residence at any one time in our amazing–and eclectic–eighteenth century building just on the edge of the University’s central campus, boasting views of The Meadows.