Organizations in the Narrative Ecosystem
of the Storytelling Boom
Research Organizations | Research Projects + Labs
Storytelling | Communications | Associations + Networks
Research Organizations
Association for Philosophy and Literature (APL)
Fostering a global intellectual community that encourages and advances scholarly research at the intersections of philosophical, literary, cultural, textual, visual, medial, art, and aesthetic theories.
Association for Studies in Fiction and Fictionality (ASIFF)
Dedicated to developing connections between scholars of fiction worldwide, including specialists of literature, literary theory, cinema, video games, philosophy, psychology and neurosciences.
Center for Digital Narrative
University of Bergen
Humanities-driven research in electronic literature, games studies, digital culture, and computation to advance understanding of digital narrative.
Center for Narrative Research
University of Wuppertal.
Research and teaching on all aspects of narrative from theoretical and systematic, as well as historical and cultural perspectives. Publisher of Diegesis.
Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Narrative (CIRN)
St. Thomas University
Facilitating research on the role of narrative in human experience, assisting the development of theory on the narrative complexity of human life and encouraging the use of narrative approaches to practice in a variety of fields.
Centre for Literature, Cognition and Emotions (LCE)
University of Oslo
An interdisciplinary centre that brings together diverse fields such as literary studies, linguistics, psychology and neurosciences in a new conversation about literature.
Commission on Science and Literature (CoSciLit)
The commission gathers a large network of researchers from around the world, fostering interdisciplinary discussions on the intersections between science and literature.
Narrare Centre for Interdisciplinary Narrative Studies
Tampere University
Bringing together researchers in literary studies, social sciences, game studies, media and journalism, history, philosophy, education, psychology, health sciences, political science and administrative studies.
Project Narrative
Ohio State University
A cluster of faculty, visiting scholars, and graduate students who work on narrative and narrative theory. Project Narrative regularly holds free events hosting narrative experts.
SELMA
University of Turku
Exploring the interrelations between storytelling, experientiality and memory.
Research Projects + Labs
AI STORIES
University of Bergen, 2024-29
A five-year ERC-funded project that explores how narrative archetypes shape the stories generative AI creates.
AUTOSTORY
University of Tampere
Harnessing narrative theory and literary sociology to analyse authors’ narrative rhetoric in the 21st-century story economy.
Extending Digital Narrative (XDN)
University of Bergen
Investigating the narrative potential of new technologies to understand how they will shape future storytelling genres.
GAITS (How Generative Artificial Intelligence Transforms Recreational Storytelling)
Aarhus University, 2026-30
GAITS examines everyday narrative interaction between humans and Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), asking how the way we make sense of as well as with stories is transformed in the era of “communicative AI”.
Instrumental Narratives: The Limits of Storytelling and New Story-Critical Narrative Theory
University of Tampere, 2018-22
Developing ideas and analytical instruments that will equip researchers, professional groups and non-academic audiences to navigate today’s social and textual environments that are dominated by storytelling.
Narrative Group
USC Institute for Creative Technologies
Pursuing basic and applied research to advance technologies for automated storytelling and narrative understanding.
Narrative Intelligence Lab
University of Kentucky
Investigating how computers can use narrative to interact more naturally with people.
The Narrative and Cognition Lab
Durham University
Creating a space for collaborations grounded in ‘operational empathy’ – a reciprocal understanding of scientific and narrative methods, models, and findings – to catalyse research across these fields and innovate the science of mind.
Storytelling
Australian Storytellers
An open organisation which welcomes anyone with an interest in oral storytelling, whether teller, listener, beginner or professional.
Stanford Storytelling Project
Stanford University
Exploring all forms of stories, from myth to memoir, in all kinds of media, from print to performance.
StoryCorps
Committed to the idea that everyone has an important story to tell and that every story matters; we’ve archived the largest single collection of human voices ever gathered.
Communications
Center for Social Impact Communication
Georgetown University
Transforming how practitioners and their organizations approach storytelling now and into the future.
Center for Public Interest Communications
University of Florida
Helping movements, foundations, agencies and organizations apply behavioral, cognitive and social science to build better communication strategies for the common good.
Center for Story-based Strategy
Cultivating imagination spaces where story, grassroots leadership, organizing, and democracy are interwoven strategies to build power.
Narrative Initiative
Collaborating with social movements to transform deeply held beliefs and values to make equity and justice the foundations of multiracial democracy.
Reframe
Investing in people — strategists, creatives, leaders, and dreamers — to develop the skills, acumen, and networks needed to advance just narratives at scale.
Storytelling for Good
Helping communicators harness storytelling to create impact; created by The Communications Network and Hattaway Communications.
Associations + Networks
The Communications Network
A network that connects, gathers, and informs leaders from the most influential foundations, nonprofits, and social sector consultancies across the globe.
European Narratology Network
An association of individual narratologists and narratological institutions, focused predominantly narrative representation across European languages and cultures.
International Society for the Study of Narrative (ISSN)
A society for academics, professionals, and independent scholars from around the world, hosting an annual conference and member listserv.
Narrative Matters
An international, interdisciplinary conference held every 2 years.
The Narrative Directory
IRIS (International Resource for Impact and Storytelling)
A tool for activists, civic innovators, independent storytellers, journalists, researchers and funders to locate one another, exchange knowledge and see the bigger picture of the global impact storytelling and narrative change ecosystem.
The Radical Communicators Network
A global cohort of more than 5,000 communicators to cross-pollinate conversations across a variety of movements, organizations, levels of experience, geographies, languages, and political associations.