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Research event: Arts and Humanities PG students - Pitch your ideas at the Digital Futures Lab

06/02/2026
Digital Futures Lab - turn your ideas into research opportunities

University of Wolverhampton launches Digital Futures Lab to empower Postgraduate innovation

Postgraduate students working in the Arts, Humanities and beyond are invited to turn their ideas into research opportunities at the launch of The University of Wolverhampton’s Digital Futures Lab.

Taking place on Saturday 7 February 2026, from 2pm–5 pm, the event will be held on the Ground Floor of the George Wallis Building, Ring Road St Peters, WV1 1DT.

The Digital Futures Lab is designed to foster creativity and collaboration, providing a platform for students to pitch innovative ideas that could shape future research projects – as well as the Arts and Humanities.

Director of the Lab and Professor of English Literature Sebastian Groes said: "Higher Education is changing rapidly as society's nature and needs evolve. The Arts and Humanities have begun integrating digital and computational methods into traditional research, offering new approaches to both historical and current questions. At Wolverhampton, the Arts and Humanities are now combining their unique expertise - including Computational Literary Studies - to develop innovative approaches and ways of working. Their goal is to create high-impact solutions for social challenges, health and wellbeing issues, and Sustainable Development Goals."

The Lab will focus on emerging technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), offering students the chance to explore how these tools can transform approaches to language, literature, culture, and beyond.

Speakers include:

Professor Karina van Dalen-Oskam (Huygens Institute, the Netherlands), Novel Perceptions: towards an inclusive canon

Professor Denise Doyle (Derby, UK), Poetry, virtual reality and digital embodiment

Professor Sebastian Groes (Wolverhampton), Authorship, influence and computational analysis: Margaret Atwood and Naomi Alderman

Professor Alex Goody (Oxford Brookes, UK), AI technology and autism spectrum disorder

Dr Asami Nakamura (Kobe University, Japan), Chatbots, biases and virtual companions

Registration is now open 

For further details, please visit contact the Digital Futures Lab team led by Professor Sebastian Groes at s.groes@wlv.ac.uk.

For more information please contact the Corporate Communications Team.