Institute for Digital Cultural Heritage Studies
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About

Digital Cultural Heritage is a new academic discipline born at the beginning of the 21st century at the intersection of Cultural Heritage Studies, Conservation Science, Archaeology, Museology, Computer Science, and Information Science. This innovative field crosses disciplinary boundaries to create new theoretical frameworks and methodologies that enhance the exploration, understanding, and protection of cultural heritage and alter the traditional processes of production and propagation of knowledge in museums and sites of cultural significance.

The Institute for Digital Cultural Heritage Studies (DKES) was established at the LMU by Professor and Chair Nicola Lercari in 2022 through funding from the Hightech Agenda Bayern initiative. The DKES institute is unique at the LMU and within the European higher education system, as it is a research and teaching unit fully dedicated to spearheading transformative research on the ancient world through technology and digital societal engagement with the past in ways that address 21st-century societal problems and expand digital scholarship.

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DKES researchers and students ask and answers vital questions for studying the human experience and improving the understanding, preservation, and sustainable use of the cultural and material legacies of the past through the lens of technology. Digitization, digital collections, GIS, 3D mapping, laser scanning, 3D visualization, VR/AR, serious games, artificial intelligence, semantic web, are some of the techniques utilized at the Institute.

Additionally, research and teaching at the Institute re-frame how scholars and students think about past and present cultures by developing deep relationships across the university-participant-stakeholder spectrum in ways that increase cultural heritage awareness and improve the quality of life for our partner communities and the world.