The Humanities Innovation Lab is the core site for experiments in digital humanities at UC Davis. The lab is developing new digital tools and methodologies to address the challenges faced by scholars in the humanities and humanistic social sciences. The lab aims to foster new institutional infrastructures and more collaborative modes of producing, publishing, and distributing humanities research.

The principal research programs of the lab include:
• Cultural studies of video games and interactive media
• Games and gamification as modes of humanities scholarship
• Gaming platforms and VR technologies for scientific research
• Off-the-shelf strategies for digital humanities scholarship
• Relations of ludic culture with surveillance, securitization, and militarization
• Technosocial practices such as tweaking, cheating, hacking, and creeping