About us

Research objectives

The Medical Humanities Research Centre is an inter- and transdisciplinary association of researchers from the University of Innsbruck whose research focuses on themes and concepts of medicine and medical sciences, carried out from the perspectives of the humanities, social sciences, linguistics, education and cultural studies, with an explicitly gender-critical point of view. The participating researchers address issues such as the relationship between health and society, questions of health and the environment and the topic of health as a resource. In this context, researchers investigate biopolitics, bioethics and reproduction technologies as well as health and social policy. Further focus areas are the philosophy of medicine, questions of health communication, physicality and body images, gender concepts, ability and disability as well as care regulations and constellations in past and present. The applied concepts are situated at the interface between cultural sciences, humanities and life sciences. The research centre establishes an association of researchers working on these questions at the University of Innsbruck and at the same time seeks to intensify existing research contacts with the Medical University of Innsbruck, the private university UMIT and the nearby universities of applied sciences and to further expand international cooperation networks. In addition to the development of joint research initiatives and dissemination strategies, the participants intend to actively contribute to current debates and to participate in discourses shaping developments human medicine and related fields. The Medical Humanities Research Centre is part of the Center for Gender Studies Innsbruck.