Translational research has become a defining paradigm of contemporary biomedicine – and of the sciences more broadly. It names the ambition to move knowledge “from bench to bedside”, converting experimental insight into clinical, technological, and societal impact. Over the past decades, this ambition has been institutionalised through dedicated journals, funding schemes, infrastructures, and methodological frameworks designed to accelerate scientific uptake. Yet the translation of knowledge into practice is never a purely scientific matter. Complex societal challenges – ranging from public health crises to environmental change and technological governance – cannot be solved by science alone. They require attention to meaning-making, cultural interpretation, institutional norms, historical experience, ethical considerations, and the conditions under which arguments become credible and trustworthy.
This Collection begins from the claim that translational science urgently needs the humanities. Scientific expertise can account for efficacy in controlled settings, but it cannot, by itself, explain why expertise is mistrusted, how messages travel across social worlds, or how knowledge is reshaped as it moves between laboratories, clinics, policy arenas, and publics. Translation is not merely a matter of transfer, but of mediation – of values, narratives, authority, and responsibility – across cultural, linguistic, and epistemic boundaries.
At the same time, the humanities must confront their own translational challenge. While often called upon to “add context” or “provide critique”, they have rarely articulated a robust account of how their forms of knowledge can travel beyond academic settings without being instrumentalised or diluted. If the humanities are to contribute meaningfully to urgent societal problems, they must themselves become translational – without surrendering their epistemic commitments.
The aim of this Collection is to explore the conditions of possibility for a translational humanities. It asks how humanities-based knowledge can be made applicable, actionable, and socially engaged without betraying its critical, interpretive, and historical character. What models of translation – past and present – can the humanities draw upon? What epistemic, ethical, and institutional grounds legitimise their movement across domains? Alongside conceptual and historical investigations, the Collection presents empirical case studies of translational humanities in practice, examining how humanistic expertise operates across disciplines, sectors, and sites of decision-making.
We invite contributions that seek to define translational humanities not as an auxiliary to science, but as a distinctive and necessary mode of knowledge production for addressing complex societal problems.
Editors
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