Technology rarely changes only technology. Artificial intelligence can alter how people make decisions, how information spreads and what they consider trustworthy. Digitalisation can transform the way cultural heritage is preserved and accessed. New technologies can reshape organisations, education and even the way communities govern themselves.
Understanding these changes is the ambition behind LIMINAL, a new research centre launching at the Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics and Cybernetics (CIIRC) at the Czech Technical University in Prague. Its motto, “Past Forward,” captures the centre’s central idea: looking at the past can help us better understand the technological transformations happening today, and prepare for what comes next.
LIMINAL approaches technology through the lens of the anthropology of technology. Rather than looking only at what new technologies can do, the centre is interested in what they do to people, organisations and societies — and, equally importantly, how people and institutions shape the technologies they adopt.
That creates an intentionally broad research agenda spanning artificial intelligence, cultural heritage, business, communities and communication.
For my birthday, I gave myself a little gift: after years of work and effort, we're opening the new LIMINAL research center, which combines archaeology, anthropology, and AI.
Five areas, one question
LIMINAL’s work will be organised around five interconnected areas. LIMINAL AI will explore how artificial intelligence is changing human behaviour, information environments, trust, persuasion and decision-making. As AI becomes embedded in everyday work and communication, questions around how people understand and respond to these systems are becoming increasingly important.
LIMINAL Heritage focuses on cultural memory, museums, archives and digitalisation. One of its projects is Past Forward, a platform connecting cultural heritage, research and public participation.
LIMINAL Business looks at organisational resilience in practice. Its focus includes AI literacy, critical thinking, decision-making and new approaches to education, including the Academy of Resilience.
LIMINAL Community examines how societies organise themselves — from governance and institutions to collective decision-making, cooperation and legitimacy. The underlying question is what makes communities and systems resilient when the environment around them changes.
Finally, LIMINAL Comms aims to connect research with the wider public through lectures, podcasts, events, media and accessible storytelling.
Together, the five areas reflect a belief that technological change cannot be understood in isolation from the people and institutions that use it.
Why this matters now
The launch comes at a moment when the pace of technological change is putting pressure on organisations and societies across almost every sector. AI is perhaps the most visible example. Companies are experimenting with new AI tools, universities are reconsidering how students learn, governments are developing new approaches to regulation, and individuals are increasingly relying on algorithmic systems to process information and make decisions.
But technological adaptation is not simply a question of adopting the newest tool. It is also about trust, behaviour, culture, institutions and human decision-making. This is where LIMINAL aims to position itself: at the boundary between technological development and the social systems in which technology ultimately operates.
From research to public debate
An important part of LIMINAL’s approach is its emphasis on connecting research with the outside world. Through its communications activities, the centre plans to bring its work into public discussion through events, podcasts, lectures, media and storytelling.
That ambition also extends to collaboration. LIMINAL is inviting researchers, academics and practitioners from CTU, CIIRC and other institutions working on related questions to contribute, collaborate or experiment together. The idea is not to build another isolated research silo, but a platform where different disciplines can meet around questions that are becoming increasingly difficult to answer from a single perspective.
Opening the doors
LIMINAL will officially open on 25 September 2026 at CIIRC CTU in Prague. The opening event will feature speakers including Professor Peter Mitchell and Dr William Kelly from the University of Oxford, Iain Standen of Bletchley Park, and Sara Polak, alongside representatives of CTU and the new centre.
The public programme will take place from 15:00 to 17:30 at the CIIRC CTU Penthouse, following a closed expert symposium. The programme will then continue from 19:00 at the RICAIP Testbed as part of European Researchers’ Night, featuring an archaeological pub quiz and the sealing of a LIMINAL time capsule that will later be deposited in the Museum of Prague.
The symbolism is fitting. A time capsule is, after all, a message from one period to another, an attempt to preserve what matters today for people who will encounter it in the future. That is also what sits at the heart of LIMINAL’s “Past Forward” philosophy: using the past not simply to remember, but to better understand the future. For a technology ecosystem increasingly focused on what comes next, that may be a useful perspective.
