Digital technologies create new opportunities and challenges for the interpretation of the cultural heritage of mankind and the further development of media, design and communication. Both the digital humanities and the fields of design and media have been firmly anchored in applied research and transfer here at the university for many years. These areas are internationally networked and undertake a wide range of projects. The intersection of contemporary communication and research in the humanities is, however, still barely established as a field of research in Germany.

The university plays a central role in the digital humanities in the city of Mainz. In addition to the inter-university master's degree program "Digital Methodology in the Humanities and Cultural Sciences", which is jointly organized with the university and other research institutions, it is also home to the office of the Mainz Center for Digitality in the Humanities and Cultural Sciences, mainzed. The main focus of the research work carried out over two decades is the digitization of material legacies and their digital localization in space and time, with the reliable provision of data for research purposes being the main focus. Accordingly, the university will actively contribute to the process of establishing a national research data infrastructure (NFDI), which is currently being initiated. In the coming years, the university will continue to conduct research in the field of research data management and knowledge modelling with a focus on 3D data acquisition and geodata.

The img - Institute for Media Design does applied work and research with the time-based media of animation, interaction, film/video and media-converging applications, also with a spatial reference. This includes the use and application of new media technologies such like VR/AR, media archaeological research of historical media (DFG project), transfer and construction of media archives for the Mainz area of expertise Moving Types - time-based and interactive communication, advertising in film and Fluxus pioneers in film documents. The transfer by means of exhibitions and symposia with partners on a national and international level and time- and media-based publications are the goal and central aspect of design expertise.

The IDG - Gutenberg Design Lab is dedicated to the critical content-related and creative-conceptual exploration of issues relevant to communication design. The focus is on typography and the interaction of science and communication. Examples include online publication projects such as "The Missing Scripts" and "The World's Writing Systems", exhibition and publication projects for the National Bauhaus Year such as "Moholy-Nagy and the New Typography", "bauhaus.lab" and "FUTURA. The Font" (together with Gutenberg-Museum / KSB) to the recording of digital online scores for contemporary dance (Motion Bank) and the expansion of Choreographic Coding Labs.