The main areas of research and scholarship have crystallized at the Department of Historiography, Source Studies, and Archaeology: problems of the historiography and intellectual history of early modern and modern Eastern Europe; problems of local history and heritage studies on the materials of Sloboda Ukraine; archaeological heritage and ancient history of Left-Bank Ukraine, Bronze Age to early medieval times; history and cultural heritage of multinational cities of Ukraine. Within these areas, members of the Department work on diverse issues of historiography, source studies, local studies, archaeology, cultural heritage studies, museum studies, archival studies, art studies, urban history, etc. More than 1,500 scientific, popular science and methodical works were published by the members of the Department. Among them are more than 30 monographs and more than 15 textbooks.

The Astakhov Readings, an international scholarly conference, and the Lunyov Readings, a museological scholarly conference, have become an institutional tradition. From the end of the 1990s to 2018, 17 issues of the “Kharkiv Historiographical Review” were published, the publication of the “Notebooks in Source Studies” series continues. In 1997, the staff of the Department was awarded the D. I. Yavornyts’kyi Award of All-Ukrainian Union of Researches of Local History.

Members of the Department take active part in the work of the National Union of Local Historians (Professor S. M. Kudelko sits on the Union’s board), the Union of Archivists, Kharkiv Historical and Archaeological Society, and other public bodies.

Members of the Department maintain intensive scholarly ties with colleagues at other educational and research institutions of Ukraine and abroad.