Master's Programme in Digital Humanities

120 credits

Do you have a background in the humanities or social sciences and an interest in how digital media inform, support, and are integrated into society and culture? Are you curious to learn how recent developments in digital technology, including artificial intelligence, impact our everyday lives? The Master's Programme in Digital Humanities offers you highly sought-after technical skills and knowledge about the digital present.

Expand the information below to show details on entry requirements, programme-specific documents, selection criteria and tuition fees.

Autumn 2025 Autumn 2025, Uppsala, 100%, On-campus, English

Location

Uppsala

Pace of study

100%

Teaching form

On-campus

Instructional time

Daytime

Start date

1 September 2025

Language of instruction

English

Entry requirements

Academic requirements

A Bachelor's degree, equivalent to a Swedish Kandidatexamen, from an internationally recognised university. The main field of study must be within the humanities or the social sciences.

Language requirements

Proficiency in English equivalent to the Swedish upper secondary course English 6. This requirement can be met either by achieving the required score on an internationally recognised test, or by previous upper secondary or university studies in some countries. Detailed instructions on how to provide evidence of your English proficiency are available at universityadmissions.se.

Selection

Students are selected based on an application summary sheet which includes a summary of their Bachelor's thesis (or equivalent project work). lnterviews may be used to distinguish applicants with otherwise equal qualifications.

Tuition fee-paying students and non-paying students are admitted on the same grounds but in different selection groups.

Fees

If you are not a citizen of a European Union (EU) or European Economic Area (EEA) country, or Switzerland, you are required to pay application and tuition fees.

First tuition fee instalment: SEK 50,000
Total tuition fee: SEK 200,000

About the programme

Over the past twenty years, research and study in the humanities and social sciences has increasingly integrated new digital tools and methods, including AI and other automated computational processes. The Master's Programme in Digital Humanities offers you the opportunity to learn a range of powerful computational methods, which can be used to analyse, organise, and visualise both born-digital media and digitised materials, including textual, visual, and multimedia/multimodal data and models. You will also learn about the challenges and opportunities offered to cultural heritage institutions by heritage digitisation and associated digital tools for making digital heritage materials available and usable in diverse settings.

The programme is multidisciplinary and driven by humanistic inquiry and curiosity. Beyond learning about the implementation and use of computational tools and methods, a major theme in the programme is the critical evaluation of digital technologies and their use in a variety of contexts, including collecting institutions, cultural heritage, and academic research in disciplines such as literature, history, languages, media studies, information studies, and art history.

This programme offers vital skills and experience for a variety of national or international career paths. Today, there is a great demand for professionals and academics with knowledge of digital humanities. You will be able to work with, for example, cultural heritage, digitisation and cultural and information services in interdisciplinary professional environments. Another option is development and investigative work requiring a dual expertise in the humanities or social sciences and technical skills. The programme also provides a good foundation for doctoral studies if you want to pursue a research career.

The programme includes compulsory courses in digital humanities, but you are also able to deepen or broaden your knowledge in another field of study by choosing from a range of elective courses.

Degree

The programme leads to the degree of Master of Arts (120 credits) with Digital Humanities as the main field of study.

Content

The programme includes individual courses which are 7.5 to 30 credits each, and a Master's thesis. The compulsory part of the programme comprises 97.5 credits, including an internship course (7.5 credits) and the Master's thesis course (30 credits).

The compulsory courses taken during the first two semesters provide a broad range of knowledge and skills in the theoretical, practical and technical aspects of digital humanities. The internship course offers the opportunity to spend five weeks doing workplace-based learning in and organisation of relevance for your studies in the digital humanities.

In the second year, you can choose to include a maximum of 22.5 credits of elective courses from Uppsala University's course catalogue into your programme studies. This allows you to personalise and specialise your Master's degree in digital humanities towards the methods, applications, and areas of study that you find the most interesting and useful. You will be assisted in making a personal study plan for the programme’s second year.

Courses within the programme

Semester 1

The first semester introduces the digital humanities as an area of scholarly and professional work with a focus on cultural heritage and its applications in the digital humanities domain. This is done through delving into the fields’ history and development and learning core computational skills including foundational programming, computer-driven applications for text and visual analysis, and basic AI applications.

Semester 2

A key theme in the programme’s second semester is large-scale computational text analysis in the digital humanities, specifically the application of corpus tools, natural language processing, basic machine learning and large language models. Another main theme focuses on visualisation tools and computer vision, including deep learning, and generative AI.

The second semester also includes the possibility to do an internship with an organisation or workplace pertinent to the field of digital humanities.

Semester 3

The third semester offers opportunities to specialise or broaden programme studies in the digital humanities by selecting elective courses comprising 22.5 credits from Uppsala University's course catalogue. The chosen courses must be relevant for the themes of the programme. The third semester also offers a research design course in support of upcoming thesis work.

Semester 4

The programme’s fourth semester is dedicated to planning, carrying out, and reporting an independent research study in the form of a Master’s thesis.

Please note that the order of courses and their content can be subject to change as the programme is continuously adjusted to maintain the highest international standard and to reflect developments within the field of digital humanities.

Learning experience

Teaching primarily takes the form of on-campus lectures, practical exercises with digital methods and tools, supervision, and seminars. Exercises, seminars and supervision are usually compulsory unless otherwise stated in the course syllabus.

It is important to note that a high degree of ability and willingness to participate in in-class discussions in English, including group work and other oral assignments, are required for successful completion of programme studies.

The main formats for examination are individual or group-based written assignments, individual exams, seminar assignments, and the Master's thesis.

In addition to the scheduled teaching, you are expected to study and prepare, on your own or in groups, that which is required to achieve the learning objectives of the programme's courses. The programme is both theoretical and practical; it is application-oriented and takes an experimental approach. During the second year, within the framework of the internship course, there is the opportunity for a placement at a workplace or other type of organisation.

The programme's compulsory courses take place on campus in Uppsala.

The language of instruction and course literature is English.

Career

With a Master's degree in Digital Humanities, you will be attractive in many sectors of the labour market, both in Sweden and abroad. You will be able to work within the cultural heritage sector, with cultural and information services, or in other arenas where a combination of humanist and social science competencies with computational and digital skillsets are sought after. The major archives, libraries and museums are examples of potential future employers.

Your humanities and social science background and technical skills can also open up opportunities in development and investigative work, as well as research tasks in multidisciplinary projects. Through your expertise in conducting research with a humanities and social science approaches using digital source materials and tools, this degree will make you an attractive candidate for doctoral studies.

Career support

During your time as a student, UU Careers offers support and guidance. You have the opportunity to take part in a variety of activities and events that will prepare you for your future career.

Contact

For programme-specific questions, please contact Dr Olle Sköld, director of studies:
olle.skold@abm.uu.se
For admissions-related or general information, please contact our applicant support team:
study@uu.se

Admitted or on the waiting list

Find information about the programme start and registration in the student gateway.