The role of the Institute for Humanities Research is to advance the humanities as a site of vital research that contributes to productive social dialogue and makes a difference in the world. The IHR generates and supports transformative, transdisciplinary, collaborative humanities scholarship that addresses compelling social issues linking the past, present, and future.

The CHCI Initiative Humanities for the Environment serves as a network and resource for centers to develop (or extend) programming, research and dialogue related to contemporary environmental challenges.

The Portland Center for the Public Humanities at Portland State University (PCPH) promotes rigorous humanistic inquiry into the languages, histories, and ideas that shape our ways of life, as well as those that offer a means of positively transforming them. In our view, the underlying purpose of the core humanistic disciplines is to engage public life by reframing our perspectives, interrogating our assumptions, and raising questions about human thought, history, and culture.

The mission of the CKP is to develop and strengthen community connections, helping to overcome the social, economic, and racial divisions among the various knowledge communities on the South Side of Chicago.

The Institute seeks to be an active community forum for exchange among scholars and citizens and a place where the University can think creatively about what it does.