Based on the model of scientific IGERT programs that seed scholarly, pedagogical, and social innovation in science for years to come, this program accommodates the characteristic strengths, typical methods and approaches, and distinctive intellectual culture of the humanistic disciplines in a novel graduate training program.

Problem based inquiry

Humanities research has focused on problem-based inquiry for over the last decade: allowing humanists to pursue research agendas driven by questions of pressing concern, beyond the bounds of their disciplines. The IGHERT program brings this problem-based approach to graduate training by establishing structures wherein scholars across fields, and geographies, develop methods and approaches that form dissertation projects and create lifelong habits of internationalized inquiry.

Integrative approach

The IGHERT program offers participating students integrative training:

• Integrating the conduct of humanities research with reflective research training
• Integrating different disciplines with an interdisciplinary approach
• Integrating different research cultures with international exchange
• Integrating researchers from all career phases (doctoral researchers, postdocs,
• senior faculty)
• Integrating students with different career aspirations (teaching and research,
• academic work, creative industries, NGOs, etc.)
• Integrating academic experts with cultural institutions, government, and industry

This strong integrative orientation provides context and opportunity for the formulation of collaborative research problems and an interdisciplinary and internationally networked organization of expertise needed to address these problems. This approach also highlights the publicly meaningful frameworks in which research is contextualized and applied.

The Role of Humanities Centers

By training graduate students who see humanities center-based collaboration as crucial to their intellectual and professional formation, this program seeds Humanities disciplines with new scholars who will continue to advance the CHCI vision at their home institutions for decades to come.