DARIAH is delighted to publish the latest Spotlight article Toward digital descriptive models for the performing arts: Spotlight on the Working Group Theatralia. This article is part of the DARIAH Spotlight campaign, a monthly series that focuses on digital scholarship within the DARIAH network.

Written by Cécile Chantraine Braillon, La Rochelle Université (France) and Anamarija Žugić Borić, Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research (Croatia), this article presents the work conducted within the Theatralia Working Group to address the growing digital transformation of the performing arts. Bringing together around 30 scholars, GLAM professionals, and artists, the group fosters interdisciplinary research on digitization, digital performance, digital methodologies, and archiving in the performing arts.

After an initial phase dedicated to identifying the new challenges and emerging needs raised by the performing arts’ adaptation to the digital turn, the group underscored a key epistemological issue: the need for a shared computational language to describe and represent the field, enabling meaningful data exchange and generating real scholarly value. In its second phase, Theatralia therefore refocused its efforts on refining such digital description models and supporting their integration into broader archival infrastructures. This Spotlight delves into the issues identified and the task of building and further developing a thesaurus for performing arts.

This article is part of DARIAH’s latest outreach campaign, DARIAH Spotlight, which makes research within the DARIAH network more visible. This monthly series will showcase digital scholarship in the humanities, from both DARIAH Working Groups and DH projects within the DARIAH network. Follow this campaign for more Spotlight articles.

We are pleased to announce that SSHOC’s activities in 2026 will be led by newly elected Sally Chambers (from DARIAH ERIC – Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities) as Chair, and Vania Virgili (from E-RIHS ERIC – European Research Infrastructure for Heritage Science) as Vice-Chair. This decision was taken by the SSHOC Governing Board during their meeting on 27 November 2025.

The Governing Board continues to be composed of the ERICs from the ESFRI Social Sciences & Humanities domain: CESSDA, CLARIN, DARIAH, EHRI, E-RIHS, ESS, and SHARE, together with ESFRI Projects GGP, GUIDE, OPERAS and RESILIENCE.

As the newly elected coordinators of the SSH Open Cluster Governing Board, Sally Chambers and Vania Virgili will serve voluntarily in 2026, coordinating the SSHOC Cluster. The Cluster brings together 20 members from research organisations, data archives, funding agencies, and the national nodes of the cluster’s infrastructures. They will also represent SSHOC in communications with external bodies such as the European Commission (EC), ERIC Forum, and the EOSC Association, as well as act as liaisons with the EU-wide science clusters initiative OSCARS.

SSHOC’s governance bridges the full breadth of the research infrastructure landscape in the humanities and social sciences, including the complementary contributions of heritage science. The involvement of E-RIHS at the leadership level is especially significant, as E-RIHS recently became an ERIC (on 28 March 2025), and the cluster is proactively giving space for newly established ERICs to take leadership roles. This signals a stronger commitment to fully integrating cultural heritage expertise into the overall SSH data ecosystem. 

Sally Chambers will be taking on the Chair role after a year of acting as Vice-Chair of SSHOC:  “I am grateful to follow on from Darja Fišer (from CLARIN-ERIC) as the next Chair of the SSHOC Governing Board in 2026, in what will be a crucial year for Research Infrastructures. In the coming months, SSHOC will need to navigate the emerging landscape of Research and Technology Infrastructures, advocate for the strategic importance of the SSH RIs in the next Framework Programme, as well as understand our role in the recently launched EOSC Federation. I am delighted to join forces with Vania Virgili in her new role as Vice-Chair, to address these challenges through our shared commitment to strengthening collaboration across social sciences, humanities and now heritage science infrastructures.”

“As a newly established ERIC, taking on the Vice-Chair role in SSHOC is, for me, a meaningful recognition that heritage science has a place at the European core of research infrastructures. I am grateful that SSHOC has, over the years, served as a vital forum for exchanging experiences and tackling shared challenges. As Vice‑Chair, I am committed to ensuring balanced representation across disciplines, supporting the Chair, and encouraging other SSH research infrastructures to step forward as leaders in future cycles. With E‑RIHS now a full ERIC, I look forward to contributing heritage science expertise to SSHOC’s mature cluster, building on past achievements and strengthening collaboration to support and represent the broader SSHOC community across the social sciences and humanities,” said Vania Virgili in her speech. 

The new Chair and Vice-Chair take on their roles as of 1st January 2026, where one of their first tasks will be to present the SSHOC Annual Plan for 2026. 

This post is republished from the SSHOC website.

The DARIAH Annual Event 2026 will take place on May 26th to May 29th in Rome, Italy. Our host for this year’s event is CNR: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche. May 26th will be a day for DARIAH internal meetings, followed by the main conference on May 27th to May 29th.

This year’s event will explore the topic of Digital Arts and Humanities With and For Society: Building Infrastructures of Engagement.

Venue

Università degli Studi Roma Tre – Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici, Via Ostiense, 234, 00146 Roma RM
More information on how to reach the venue and a list of suggested hotels will be published on the annual event website soon.

Call for Papers

The theme of DARIAH’s 2026 Annual Event is to explore digitally-enabled research through a public and participatory lens, focusing on who our research is for, what are its social and public benefits, and how research can serve to create new dialogues within the public sphere. We seek to foster exchanges on how digital infrastructures, networks and collaborative methods can enable and sustain forms of scholarship that are open, flexible and socially responsive. A way to frame this is through the concept of hybridity: an intermingling of ‘disciplines, technological and cultural practices’ which embed within them the goal of connectivity. This may be connectivity of the university or memory institutions with society through collaborative and joint engagements, or it might be providing alternative spaces for/where people can connect and interact through a hybrid network of physical and technology-mediated encounters to co-construct knowledge.’

Whether through scholarly reflections, concrete case studies, theoretical contributions, or policy considerations, this year we seek to explore how digital, social and institutional infrastructures can support engaged research, and nurture generosity, participation and shared creativity in the digital arts and humanities.

We welcome contributions on a variety of topics, including but not limited to:

• Infrastructures of engagement: designing open, inclusive, collaborative, and sustainable platforms
• New models of collaboration across academia, memory institutions, and society
• Pedagogies of engagement and public-facing (digital) humanities education
• Mapping engagement: Evaluating and evidencing public value and impact in digital research
• Preservation, stewardship, and resilience in digital knowledge infrastructures
• Co-creation, citizen science, public and participatory humanities, and community-driven, engaged scholarship
• Policy and governance frameworks for sustaining participatory infrastructures
• Creative and artistic practices as forms of public engagement and dialogue
• The role of digital archives and participatory practices in shaping collective memory and identity
• Ethical and sustainable approaches to participatory digital-enabled  research
• Implementing CARE: Designing digital infrastructures that foster trust, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility
• Intercultural and transnational perspectives on public digital humanities
• Research infrastructure as critical Infrastructure – strategies to build resilient infrastructure for engagement and public good
• Policy and governance frameworks for sustaining participatory infrastructures

Keynote speaker

We are happy to announce that Andreas Fickers, director of the Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH), 3rd Interdisciplinary Center at the University of Luxembourg and head of its Digital History Lab, will give a keynote speech on “Multimodality as a means for multivocality? Transmedia storytelling and the challenges of shared authority in digital public humanities” at the DARIAH Annual Event 2026.

Important dates

(Extended) Deadline for Call for Papers: December 22, 2025 January 8, 2026
Registration opens: February 15, 2026
Notification of acceptance: Late February, 2026

Visit the Annual Event website for more information on the event.

DARIAH-EU is proud to announce a new initiative titled “DARIAH Beyond Europe”, a curated series of online presentations aimed at highlighting the work of our valued extra-European Cooperating Partners and fostering new synergies within the DARIAH community. The series will take place throughout the academic year 2025-2026, with each session dedicated to a current extra-European Cooperating Partner. 

DARIAH Beyond Europe: Center for Digital Humanities at Princeton University
Thursday, October 30 at 14:00-15:30 CET

Our first session, highlighting our longstanding partnership with the Center for Digital Humanities at Princeton University, will be held on October 30th from 14:00 Central European Time (9:00 Eastern Daylight Savings Time). It will be presented by the Center’s Executive Director, Dr. Natalia Ermolaev and Dr. Bryan Winston, Digital Scholarship expert at the Princeton University Library. The CDH has been a DARIAH Cooperating Partner since January 2021, and since 2023 has been co-organising a series of summer workshops with DARIAH-EU and Athens University of Economics and Business.

Sessions will last 90 minutes, with time for an introduction from DARIAH, a presentation from our Cooperating Partner, followed by discussion and questions. The Cooperating Partner will have the opportunity to introduce their institution and research activities, particularly its work in the field of digital arts and humanities, and lay out how they are already collaborating, or hope to collaborate more deeply, with DARIAH members and stakeholders. Future sessions are in the process of being scheduled and will be announced in the coming weeks. 

The goal of the “DARIAH Beyond Europe” series is to provide a platform for mutual exchange and to enhance the visibility and integration of our non-European collaborators within the broader DARIAH family.

Please register to join our meeting and learn more about our extra-European Partners, and how DARIAH can help build meaningful scientific collaboration across borders!

The second call for contributions to Transformations invites scholars, practitioners, and cultural heritage professionals to reflect on the theme of the DARIAH Annual Event 2025: “The Past”.

Guest editors of this volume are Agiatis Benardou and George Artopoulos, co-chairs of the DARIAH Annual Event 2025 Programme Committee.

What is the past after the digital turn in humanities and archaeology? This question opens profound challenges for the many ways we conceptualize, access, and engage with history through computational means. We invite contributions that interrogate the fundamental nature of “the past” as it becomes increasingly mediated, represented and reconstructed through digital infrastructures, algorithms, and interfaces.

Critical Perspectives and Reflections

Since we understand the present by assigning meanings to it based on inferences drawn from past remains and our representations of those meanings, the present can be considered a repository of the past. Digital Humanists take historical materials of the Past and recontextualize them through computational methods, semantic mapping and so much more. The digital turn has not merely provided new tools for historical research—it has fundamentally transformed what the past can be depending on the affordances of the digital solutions we employ to revisit it, reconstruct it, hypothesize, discover new meanings within it through digital approaches to represent or preserve it. Every database schema, every metadata standard or vocabulary, every visualisation algorithm makes implicit claims about the nature of temporality, causality and reasoning, inference, viewpoint and historical knowledge itself. 

We seek contributions that examine these epistemic transformations: How do digital knowledge structures and solutions shape not just what we can know about the past, but what we can even imagine it to have been, while comprehending our biases and limited viewpoint of its totality?

We consider the politics of digitisation: Which voices, experiences, and material traces receive the privilege of digital preservation? What remains in the shadows—too fragmented, too mundane, too difficult, or too resourceful/laborious to encode? The absences and hidden discoveries in our digital archives are not neutral. 

This second issue of Transformations moves beyond the critique on digital ‘cemeteries’ to invite reflections on how contemporary power structures are projected backward, creating what we might call “algorithmic silences” in the historical record. We welcome critical examinations of these gaps and their implications in digital humanities.

Emerging Challenges

The challenges of scale present paradoxes: We can now process millions of documents computationally, yet each act of digitization involves reduction, selection, and interpretation. How do we navigate between the promise of “distant reading” of the past and the irreducible complexity of historical narratives? 

Interoperability poses both technical and philosophical questions. When we convert disparate historical sources into standardized formats and represent their knowledge through standardized vocabularies, do we enable new connections or allow for ex ante, biased interpretations to be embodied in these digital representations of the past?

Sustainability concerns extend beyond technical infrastructure. What does it mean to preserve “the past” when our digital formats become obsolete faster than the physical form of documentation they replace? How do we account for the environmental costs of maintaining ever-growing digital archives? What are our ethical obligations to future researchers who will inherit our digital choices and what can we learn from our mistakes?

Toward Digital Futures

How might critical reflection on digital mediations of the past inform our approach to the present’s transformation into future history? As we generate unprecedented volumes of digital traces, how can our present foresight guide the design of systems that will become tomorrow’s archives? How should we document present narratives that will become/influence our future pasts?

We seek contributions that bridge theoretical insight with practical application, combining critical analysis with constructive proposals for how digital humanities might more ethically and imaginatively engage with the many representations of the past, memory, and historical knowledge. The second issue of Transformations explores how the digital past might illuminate pathways toward more inclusive and reflective digital futures.

We welcome the submission of a diversity of research outputs:

• research articles (30,000 – 50,000 characters, including bibliography, spaces and footnotes)
• data papers (18,000 – 24,000 characters, including bibliography, spaces and footnotes)
• workflow papers (18,000 – 24,000 characters, including bibliography, spaces and footnotes)

We invite all contributors to refer to the Author’s Section on our website before submitting their contribution. These guidelines offer additional information about each of the three submission types listed above. 

When submitting your contribution, you must choose the right volume (vol. 2 ‘The Past’) and the appropriate section (research articles, data papers, workflows) corresponding to the type of submission.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Virtual and augmented reconstructions of historical environments and events
• Digital storytelling and narratives of the past
• The archaeology of digital approaches to the past
• AI and big data in historical research
• Teaching the past through digital methods
• Digital archiving and preservation strategies

Timeline

• Submission Deadline: All contributions must be submitted to Transformations by 31st December 2025, Midnight CET. (No extension deadline will be given)
• Notification of acceptance: expected around March, 2026.

Contact

transformations@episciences.org 

Editorial Board of Transformations: A DARIAH Journal

Toma Tasovac, Editor-in-Chief

Françoise Gouzi, Managing Editor

Anne Baillot, Managing Editor

Eliza Papaki, Outreach and Communications Officer

One year after its debut at the DARIAH Annual Event in Lisbon in June 2024, Transformations: A DARIAH Journal is proud to announce the publication of the first set of peer-reviewed articles in its inaugural issue, dedicated to the theme of Workflows.

This milestone marks not only the successful launch of a publishing venture by DARIAH, but also our shared commitment to cultivating a scholarly culture grounded in methodological transparency, workflow reusability, and open science.

“We are thrilled to share the first articles with our community,” said the journal’s Editor-in-Chief, Toma Tasovac. “Bringing this issue to life has been a collaborative effort, and we are deeply grateful to all those who contributed: our authors, reviewers, Scientific Committee, copy editors, and the team at Episciences. The result is a thoughtful and timely collection that recognises those who maintain datasets, build tools, and design platforms as first-class contributors to knowledge creation.”

The published articles highlight how diverse research projects—across disciplines and methodologies—are converging around a shared imperative: to make their workflows not only visible, but reusable, reflective, and open.

“As the inaugural volume of Transformations proves, there is an active community of researchers in the humanities and social sciences that strives to foster a culture of workflow reusability” wrote editors Anne Baillot, Françoise Gouzi and Toma Tasovac in their Introduction. “The published articles don’t just describe methodologies—they reflect on how to present them in a replicable way, and why this matters for scholarship at large.”

Due to the high volume of quality submissions, the journal has opted to publish the issue in two batches. Additional articles are currently moving through the editorial process and are expected to appear in the fall.

Looking ahead, Transformations will soon release its second call for articles, on the theme of “The Past”, inspired by the DARIAH Annual Event 2025 recently held in Göttingen. The call will include updated guidelines and recommendations to support authors through the submission process.

For access to the published articles and updates on upcoming calls, visit https://transformations.episciences.org.

So much research goes unnoticed. Research results may not be known outside of the community they were developed, thus limiting reuse and inspiring further research. This is the gap that the DARIAH Spotlight series aims to address.

DARIAH is delighted to announce a new outreach campaign entitled DARIAH Spotlight. This campaign is a monthly series that will provide an opportunity to showcase digital scholarship in the humanities from both DARIAH Working Groups and DH projects within the DARIAH network. 

More specifically, Spotlight articles may: 

• Enhance the visibility and showcase scholarship that takes place within the DARIAH ecosystem (DARIAH Working Groups, DARIAH members and Cooperating Partners).
• Strengthen the visibility of content contained within DARIAH tools and services (such as DARIAH-Campus and the SSH Open Marketplace).
• Provide examples of inspiring digital scholarship and project achievements, encouraging collaborations within the DARIAH community and beyond.

We welcome contributions for Spotlight posts beginning September 2025. Eight posts will be published between September 2025 – May 2026, roughly divided between Working Groups and Digital Projects. In deciding which articles will be selected, the Spotlight Team will work towards a balance between DARIAH member states and cooperating partners, a range of technologies, methods, and disciplines. We will also look for gender balance in the overall authorship of the posts. 

The deadline for the first round of consideration is July 9, 2025. If slots remain open after this first deadline, consideration for Spotlight posts will be decided on a first-come-first-serve basis.

For Working Groups 

Spotlights should announce a significant milestone for the Working Group. For example:

• Announcing a workshop, conference, or other public event that the WG will organise.
• Announcing a call for papers for a special issue of the new DARIAH journal Transformations (or announce that the special issue has been published), both in coordination with the Transformations Editorial Board.
• Announcing  a series of submissions to the SSH Open Marketplace and report on them (with links to the Marketplace entries).
• Publishing a course on DARIAH-Campus. 
• Presenting at the DARIAH’s Fridays Frontiers series. 
• In as far as possible, the article should highlight the theoretical, historical, social, and methodological underpinnings of the initiative.

For DH Projects 

Spotlights should not simply be a post about the project, but should also highlight why and how digital tools and methods were used to fulfill project goals, including: 

• How the specific technologies chosen fulfil the scientific goals 
• The community(ies) the project serves
• What research question or goal the project fulfills 
• How the project fits into the larger research landscape 
• Lessons learned 
• In as far as possible, the article should highlight the theoretical, historical, social, and methodological underpinnings of the research

The Spotlight team will prioritise Projects that can demonstrate a relation to DARIAH, for example:

• Financed by DARIAH-EU and/or DARIAH-national consortium.
• Led (or have a significant contribution) by a researcher affiliated with a DARIAH partner institution. 
• Have (or be willing to create prior to publication) an entry in the Marketplace.

Spotlight your research

Have a look at past Spotlight articles for a quick showcase of the excellent research happening in DH, linked to the DARIAH infrastructure.

Interested in featuring your research as part of this campaign? 

Questions? Email spotlight@dariah.eu

DARIAH welcomes four newly elected members joining the Scientific Board from January 2025 onwards, Claire Warwick, Professor of Digital Humanities in the Department of English at Durham University, Elena Pierazzo, DH Professor at the Centre d’Études Superieures de la Renaissance, University of Tours, Isto Huvila, Professor of Information Studies at Uppsala University in Sweden and Adjunct Professor in information management at Information Studies, Åbo Akademi University in Turku, Finland and Salvatore Capasso, Professor of Economics at the University of Naples Parthenope, Italy.

Claire Warwick is a Professor of Digital Humanities in the Department of English at Durham University. Her research is concerned with the way that digital resources, including artificial intelligence techniques, are used in the humanities and cultural heritage and in reading behaviour in physical and digital spaces. She has recently completed a monograph: Digital Humanities and the Cyberspace Decade: A World Elsewhere. She has led and co-investigated several digital humanities research projects, including the AEOLIAN network, which considered the potential for the application of AI to archives and cultural heritage. She collaborates widely, especially with researchers in Canada and the USA and gave the closing plenary lecture for the DH2016 conference. She has served on various advisory boards in digital humanities, for example the British Library’s BL Labs and was a member of the Conseil Scientifique du Campus Condorcet in Paris.

Elena Pierazzo is a DH Professor at the Centre d’Études Superieures de la Renaissance, University of Tours, where she directs the master in Digital Humanities. She has a PhD in Italian Philology. Her specialisms are Italian Renaissance texts, digital editions of early modern and modern draft manuscripts, digital editing, and text encoding. Her most recent publication is Digital Scholarly Editing: Theories, Models and Methods (2015). She has been the Chair of the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) and involved in the TEI user community, with a special interest in modern and medieval manuscripts. She was the co-chair of the Programme Committee of the DH2019 conference, co-chair of the working group on digital editions of the European Network NeDiMAH and one of the scientists-in-chief for the ITN DiXiT.

Isto Huvila is Professor of Information Studies and Director of the doctoral programme in Information Studies at the Department of ALM (Archival Studies, Library and Information Studies and Museums and Cultural Heritage Studies) at Uppsala University in Sweden and is docent (~adjunct professor) in information management at Information Studies, Åbo Akademi University in Turku, Finland. His major areas of research include information and knowledge management, information work, knowledge organisation, documentation, research data, and social and participatory information practices. Huvila received a MA degree in cultural history at the University of Turku in 2002 and a PhD degree in information studies at Åbo Akademi University (Turku, Finland) in 2006.

Salvatore Capasso is the Director of the Department of Human and Social Sciences, Cultural Heritage at the Italian National Research Council (CNR) and a Professor of Economics at the University of Naples Parthenope, Italy. With over 100 scientific publications, he has served on the editorial boards of several scientific journals. His research spans in the fields of Development Economics and Economic Growth, with a particular focus on the interplay between the underground economy, financial development, and the impact of corruption on economic performance. He also has expertise in cultural heritage studies and has overseen and coordinated numerous national and international research projects in the field. In recent years, he has extensively analysed the economic dynamics of Mediterranean countries and their cultural heritage landscapes. Additionally, he is actively involved in the governance of cultural institutions, serving on the board of the Neapolitan National Museum.

We are pleased to welcome them all in DARIAH and the Scientific Board and we look forward to fruitful collaborations!

As of September 1st, DARIAH has a new President of the Board of Directors, Dr. Agiatis Benardou. Benardou has been a Member of the Board of Directors since 2023.

“It is an honour to be appointed President of the Board of Directors of DARIAH at the turn of the Infrastructure’s second decade. I am looking forward to further collaborative achievements in the future” said Benardou.

An Ancient Historian by training, Benardou is Senior Research Associate at the Digital Curation Unit, ATHENA R.C. and Teaching Fellow in the Department of Informatics, Athens University of Economics and Business. Her main areas of interest include history in the digital domain and digital storytelling.

Agiatis Benardou will succeed Toma Tasovac, who will be stepping down in September 2024, after a 6-year term of office. Tasovac will remain in the DARIAH workforce by acting as Strategic Advisor to the Board of Directors, providing invaluable insights and experience.

“Directing DARIAH has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my career”, said Toma Tasovac. “I am immensely proud of what we have accomplished over the years, and happy to continue working together with the Board of Directors in my new role.”

According to its statutes, DARIAH ERIC has three part-time directors. Together they are responsible for the day-to-day operations of DARIAH. They consult the Senior Management Team and are supported by the DARIAH-EU Coordination Office.

Susan Schreibman, Full Professor of Digital Arts and Culture at Maastricht University, has been appointed by the General Assembly as Director for DARIAH.

In its latest meeting, the consortium’s General Assembly unanimously approved the nomination proposed by the DARIAH ERIC Board of Directors Selection Committee. 

“We are excited to welcome Susan Schreibman as a new member of the Board of Directors,” said the Board’s President, Toma Tasovac. “Susan comes to us with a stellar international career and a proven track record of leadership and innovation in the field. Her skills and vision will be invaluable as DARIAH continues to grow its impact across Europe and beyond.”

Schreibman brings with her decades of experience in digital scholarship and a deep commitment to advancing the digital humanities. She has been a pivotal figure in the field, having held leadership positions at several prestigious institutions, including Trinity College Dublin and the University of Maryland, before joining Maastricht University. Her work has consistently pushed the boundaries of how digital tools and methodologies can enrich arts and humanities research.

“I am delighted to be joining the Board of Directors at this key time”, said Susan Schreibman. “Having just celebrated DARIAH’s first decade as an ESFRI infrastructure, we now look to the next decade, building on and adding to its many successes.“

Schreibman is no stranger to DARIAH. She was already involved in the preparatory phase of the infrastructure as a representative from Ireland. From 2011-2016, she co-chaired the DARIAH Virtual Competence Center “Education and Research” (VCC2). Under her co-leadership, two well-known DARIAH services were developed: the Digital Humanities Course Registry and #dariahTeach. In addition, she acted as the National Coordinator of DARIAH in Ireland from 2010-2016. More recently, she has been the co-chair of the #dariahTeach Working Group. 

Susan Schreibman will succeed Toma Tasovac, who will be stepping down in September 2024, after a 6-year term of office.

According to its statutes, DARIAH ERIC has three part-time directors. Together they are responsible for the day-to-day operations of DARIAH. They consult the Senior Management Team and are supported by the DARIAH-EU Coordination Office. Susan Schreibman will take on the new role from September 1st, 2024.

August 6th marked the tenth anniversary of the Digital Research Infrastructure for Arts and Humanities (DARIAH) becoming a European Research Infrastructure. 

“DARIAH’s journey over the past decade has been one of continuous growth and collaboration – across borders, disciplines and methods,” said Toma Tasovac, President of the Board of Directors. “As we celebrate our first decade as an ERIC, we remain committed to fostering digital innovation and strengthening the community of arts and humanities scholars in Europe and beyond.”   

A European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) is a specific legal form that facilitates the establishment and operation of Research Infrastructures with European interest.

DARIAH started its journey to become an ERIC in January 2006 when representatives from four European institutions involved in digital humanities decided to join forces to provide services to their research communities. This would require setting up a consortium of institutions to ensure long-term sustainability of the infrastructure and a strong voice on a European level. 

In 2006, DARIAH was listed on the first publication of the ESFRI Roadmap (European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructure). DARIAH then became a European project, thanks to funding secured under the European Commission’s 7th Framework Programme (FP7), for its preparatory phase called Preparing DARIAH (2008-2011). 

Following this, DARIAH moved in February 2011 into a transition phase which would further build on the groundwork for its establishment as an infrastructure.

In August 2014, the European Commission established DARIAH as an ERIC with 15 Founding Members (Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, The Netherlands, Slovenia and Serbia). 

Following the move to ERIC status, DARIAH was awarded Landmark Status in the 2016 ESFRI Roadmap as a Research Infrastructure that reached its implementation phase and was considered a pan-European hub of scientific excellence.

Since then, DARIAH continued to develop and expand, counting currently 22 Member Countries and many Cooperating Partners in Europe, the UK, the US and Egypt. 

DARIAH has also played an active role in several European Commission funded projects that have relied on the knowledge and influence of established ERICs. The infrastructure has been the voice of arts and humanities researchers across consortiums and funding bodies.

The General Assembly of the DARIAH ERIC recently voted unanimously to accept Sweden’s application for full membership in the Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities.

“With each new member, DARIAH grows stronger, more diverse, and becomes better equipped to serve the digital needs of arts and humanities scholars across Europe,” said Dr Toma Tasovac, President of the DARIAH Board of Directors. “We are delighted to welcome Sweden on board and very much look forward to the contributions and collaborations that will come from this partnership.”

The DARIAH-SE infrastructure

Sweden began developing a formal infrastructure for the Digital Humanities in 2022, with the funding of Huminfra by the Swedish Research Council (SRC). Huminfra is a national infrastructure supporting digital, experimental, quantitative, and qualitative research in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. It has now been funded by the SCR and the participating organisations through 2028. 

Lisbeth Olsson, secretary general for research infrastructure at the Swedish Research Council, said: “The Swedish Research Council is delighted that Sweden is now a full member of DARIAH-EU. Swedish membership in DARIAH-EU will stimulate internationalisation and collaboration with European partners in the humanities through the mutual access to Swedish and European tools, data, and resources.”

Led by the Lund University Humanities Lab, Huminfra is a distributed infrastructure in the form of a consortium consisting of twelve nodes located at eleven universities and organisations at eight geographical sites. These nodes hold vital and complementary expertise in Digital Humanities and experimental humanities with a focus on e-scientific/digital materials, tools, and critical interpretative perspectives, but also experimental and quantitative approaches, the use of sensor-based data, and real-time analyses for the study of human behaviour. Visualisation and simulation is common to all nodes. There is additional expertise on speech and language technology, on library and archiving of digital collections and scholarly publishing, research data, metadata, and information processes. 

The national DARIAH consortium for Sweden will be hosted by the existing Huminfra infrastructure but will be open to any other university, cultural heritage institution or entity once established, in order to promote further growth of collaborative research in the field.

National priorities

Marianne Gullberg, Director of Huminfra, said: “Huminfra is thrilled to host DARIAH-SE. This marks a vital step forward for Swedish scholarship in the humanities.” Koraljka Golub, new national coordinator of DARIAH-SE, also expressed excitement. “Joining DARIAH-EU opens up tremendous opportunities for researchers in our fields. It allows us to participate more fully in the European research community and to leverage cutting-edge digital resources”, she stressed.

Planned areas of collaboration between the DARIAH-SE consortium and DARIAH-EU include providing information from DARIAH to Huminfra’s web-based information platform (huminfra.se) and also to the Huminfra training module and the development of tools and outreach modules. Following the example of other member states, a survey of needs for new knowledge at Huminfra’s nodes will also be undertaken to identify further needs for training and tools developments. 

DARIAH-SE will also make the Swedish resources available to DARIAH via the SSH Open Marketplace, the DARIAH Tools & Services Catalogue, and will disseminate information on current DARIAH-SE matters and events via the relevant Working Groups, the DARIAH newsletter and related channels.

Aiming to further strengthen collaborations nationally and regionally, Swe-CLARIN via Sprakbanken will work with DARIAH-SE, as a natural extension to the existing collaboration within Huminfra. Finally, collaborations with Danish and Finnish colleagues will be pursued as part of the Nordic Hub of DARIAH-EU.

By joining DARIAH-EU, Sweden aims to link and align Swedish resources to international resources and provide Swedish and international scholars with mutual access to resources, tools, and training, while increasing the capacity for international collaboration.

We are pleased to announce the first call for contributions of the first issue of Transformations: A DARIAH Journal, hosted by Episciences Diamond publishing platform.

Transformations is an overlay journal with a unique editorial line and publication project, which relies on a Diamond Open Access evaluation and publication platform. Read more on this alternative and transparent publishing model here.

Issue #1 

Workflows: Digital Methods for Reproducible Research Practices in the Arts and Humanities.

Call for contributions

For the first issue of Transformations, we are looking for contributions that explore, assess, and analyse the challenges of designing, implementing, documenting and sharing digitally-enabled workflows in the context of arts and humanities research. We welcome submissions that shed light on these challenges from a technical, methodological, infrastructural and/or conceptual point of view. 

Submissions can take the form of classical research articles, project notes, tool descriptions, data papers, or workflow analyses. Conference posters can be submitted as project notes, providing a detailed, coherent and self-standing narrative based on the original poster’s content. We invite contributions that address a variety of questions in terms of best practices: What is the state of the art in research workflows in the digital arts and humanities? What are we doing well, and what should we do better? How can we evaluate the appropriateness of a workflow or assess its efficiency?

Facing the challenges of disciplinary complexities, we are interested in what makes a workflow innovative and whether there are differences in the way we define and implement workflows in different scholarly domains. What is the role of interdisciplinarity? How can collaborations between experts from different disciplines (arts, humanities, technology etc.) lead to new insights and more comprehensive solutions?

We also welcome discussions on ethical aspects, such as what  it means for a workflow to be both ethical, reproducible and sustainable. To what extent is the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) affecting our research workflows? What will be the role of responsible, human-centric AI in the future of research workflows?

Contributions that raise awareness about  workflows in general are equally relevant. We are looking for input on what kind of documentation is necessary and at what level of granularity; whether there are modelling, standardisation or data management frameworks that make the documentation of workflows easier; and  the role of training and education in preserving and communicating workflows. Additionally, we want to understand how we can become better aware — both institutionally and conceptually — of the tacit knowledge and hidden costs which seem to be embedded in our day-to-day professional activities? 

Other topics related to digital workflows in arts and humanities research will also be welcome.

Submission and evaluation  process

Transformations is an overlay journal,  which means that authors will be expected to first deposit their manuscripts in an open repository or preprint server such as HAL or Zenodo; and then submit the link to their preprint by logging on to the journal’s website in Episciences. 

In the Authors’ section on the journal’s website, you will find additional information on Submission steps, Evaluation process and Author guidelines to help you through the submission and publication process.

All contributions will undergo an open peer review process. We will use open identities, which means that author and reviewer identities will be disclosed to each other. We won’t publish the review reports themselves.

For this particular issue, we’ll be accepting submissions in English only.

The evaluation criteria focus on the scientific quality of the manuscript, including the solidity of the methodology, the relevance to the current state of the art,and the usefulness of the insights that can be gained from it. The reviewers will also pay attention to the form of presentation, the overall readability and clarity of argumentation, as well as the accessibility of all the data relevant to the submission. For each submission type, these criteria will be applied according to the best practices of the relevant research communities.

Reviews will be conducted by members of the Scientific Committee, external qualified reviewers, or, if necessary, members of the Editorial Board. This collaborative approach ensures that each submission is evaluated by experts with relevant knowledge and experience, maintaining the highest standards of scholarly review.

Reviewers will be  asked to provide formative feedback, even if an article is not deemed suitable for publication in the journal. For the peer review process, we will rely on the Ethical guidelines for peer reviewers from COPE.

Timeline

• Submission deadline: All proceedings of DARIAH Annual Event 2024 must be submitted to Transformations by 31st October 2024.
• Notification of acceptance: expected around December 30th, 2024.

Contact

transformations@episciences.org 

Editorial Board of Transformations: A DARIAH Journal

Toma Tasovac, Editor-in-Chief

Françoise Gouzi, Managing Editor

Anne Baillot, Managing Editor

Eliza Papaki, Outreach and Communications Officer

The Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities (DARIAH-EU) is happy to announce it has signed a new Cooperating Partnership agreement with the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom. 

DARIAH is a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) whose mission is to empower research communities with digital methods to create, connect and share knowledge about culture and society. In addition to having 22 Member states, DARIAH has also established a network of cooperating partners in non-member countries.

The University of Edinburgh is a global leader in research and education with a rich tradition of academic excellence and innovation across many disciplines. It boasts significant research strengths in informatics, creative tech, ethical approaches to Artificial Intelligence, natural language processing, digital cultural heritage, digitisation and digital collections, and mapping and geographic information processing. Through Edinburgh Futures Institute, the University is focused on developing new co-creative and data-rich approaches to address the increasingly complex challenges of our time. 

“We are very excited to welcome Edinburgh to DARIAH,” said Edward Gray, DARIAH’s Officer for National Coordination. “Edinburgh has a proven track record in digital humanities, and the Centre for Data, Culture & Society supports work at the forefront of issues relevant to society, such as responsible AI and how digital scholars can understand the climatic impact of their research. They are a valuable addition to our community.”

Work in the Digital Humanities

The University of Edinburgh is home to the Edinburgh International Data Facility, hosts the UK’s national high performance computing clusters and has recently been announced as the future home of the UK’s first exascale supercomputer. In this context, Edinburgh Futures Institute provides a unique environment for arts and humanities research, supporting collaboration, skills development, cross-disciplinary exchange and access to a world-class data and computing infrastructure. 

Current digital humanities aligned research initiatives include: Creative Informatics which stimulates data-led research partnerships between creative industries and the tech sector; XR Network+ Virtual Production in the Digital Economy which supports researchers working with virtual production technologies; the Gaelic Algorithmic Research Group, an international research group devoted to developing modern technologies for Gaelic and utilising them both to strengthen and better understand the language and its associated culture; and the BRAID programme, which  works to integrate Arts, Humanities and Social Science research more fully into the Responsible AI ecosystem.

The Centre for Data, Culture & Society, a specialist hub within the Edinburgh Futures Institute empowers researchers in the arts and humanities to engage with data-rich and digital methods.  The Centre offers training on computational research methods, prototyping, seed funding and technical guidance, as well as hosting a wide range of research events.  The Centre also plays a role in supporting national and international projects and initiatives such as hosting TEI-by-Example, collaboratively leading the Digital Humanities Climate Coalition, a community interest group aligned with the UK-Ireland Digital Humanities Association, and providing training for the UK’s Digital Humanities Research Software Engineering community in collaboration with King’s College London, Cambridge University and the Turing Institute.

The Centre’s Director, Dr Lisa Otty, who will act as scientific coordinator for the partnership comments: “Building capacity for digital humanities research is a core element of our mission, which aligns perfectly with the DARIAH membership. We’re excited about the collaborative opportunities that joining DARIAH will open up, and at the prospect of working more closely with other digital research hubs and centres of expertise across the UK and Europe. With our focus on training and skills development, we also look forward to contributing to DARIAH-Campus and to a range of related working groups and initiatives in the coming years, and we welcome contact from other DARIAH members with shared interests.”

Founding Director of CDCS, and current Director of Creative Informatics, Professor Melissa Terras said “Success in the data-led approaches to the arts and humanities depends on developing communities, best practice approaches, and shared infrastructure. We are delighted to become members of DARIAH, formally connecting with many of our valued colleagues across Europe in the digital research hub space. We hope the large-scale data innovation projects currently underway at Edinburgh will also contribute expertise to this joint endeavour.”

The University of Edinburgh is delighted to join DARIAH and be part of the growing network of UK Cooperating Partners. Building on existing networks and relationships, the Centre for Data, Culture and Society will work in close collaboration with these partners to strengthen the integration of the UK’s digital humanities community within the DARIAH community.

“Beyond welcoming a world-class institution, it is really important for us to obtain a diverse geographic spread amongst institutions in the United Kingdom as we look to build a vibrant DARIAH-UK consortium,” said Gray.  

For more information on the Cooperating Partners membership in DARIAH, their role, tasks and benefits, have a look at our detailed post here.

* Banner picture: The MacEwan Hall, with Edinburgh Castle in the Background. Photo credit: Tricia Malley & Ross Gillespie

Earlier this month, DARIAH was delighted to host the kick-off meeting for ATRIUM (Advancing Frontier Research in the Arts and Humanities) in Centre Marc Bloch, Berlin, from 1st-2nd February. This four year project will exploit and strengthen complementarities between four leading European infrastructures: DARIAH (digital arts and humanities), ARIADNE (archaeology), CLARIN (languages) and OPERAS (social sciences), in order to improve workflows and access to the state-of-the-art services available to researchers across countries, languages, domains and media pertaining to archaeological research.

As ATRIUM brings together 17 partners and 12 affiliated entities across 12 countries, the launch event played host to over 60 guests from across Europe over the two days of planning and discussion. DARIAH Director Toma Tasovac introduced the project, situating it within the European Research landscape, before the various Work Packages were outlined over the following day and a half. ATRIUM will align itself with various initiatives such as the OSCARS Project, by providing a holistic framework for data access and organisation. Its workflows will be created using the SSH Open Marketplace templates, and interoperability with EOSC (the European Open Science Cloud) is a key priority for the services that ATRIUM will facilitate, by making them interoperable and ensuring the workflows are integrated.

On the second day, several breakout sessions were facilitated, where the plans and workflows for various Work Packages were planned and debated, including discussions about how best to support the project’s goals of improving metadata quality, developing training materials and services, and strengthening the ties between the infrastructures and partners involved.

One of ATRIUM’s goals is to facilitate the development and delivery of training for digital humanities researchers. One component of this will be to make a skills requirements assessment through surveys, desk research, interviews and currently available data from previous projects in order to develop a curriculum to support cross-disciplinary research, which will then be available on DARIAH-Campus.

You can follow @ATRIUM_EU on Twitter/X, connect with us on LinkedIn, and visit the ATRIUM website here.

DARIAH is delighted to announce that the Call for Participants is officially open for the Annual Event 2024, which will take place in Lisbon, Portugal, from June 18-21. The Annual Event will be hosted by NOVA FCSH, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, at Colégio Almada Negreiros, in the Campolide Campus of NOVA FCSH.

Building on the topic of last year’s Theme Call, the DARIAH Annual Event 2024 will be dedicated to the topic of Workflows: Digital Methods for Reproducible Research Practices in the Arts and Humanities. We are looking for contributions that explore, assess, analyse and embody the challenges of designing, implementing, documenting and sharing digitally-enabled workflows in the context of arts and humanities research from a technical, methodological, infrastructural and conceptual point of view. 

Questions that we would like to see addressed include but are not limited to: what is the state of the art in research workflows in the digital arts and humanities? What are we doing well, and what should we do better? How can we evaluate the appropriateness of a workflow or assess its efficiency? What makes a workflow innovative? Are there differences in the way we define and implement workflows in different scholarly domains? What is the role of interdisciplinarity: how can collaborations between experts from different disciplines (arts, humanities, technology etc.) lead to innovative perspectives and more comprehensive solutions to specific challenges? What does it mean for a workflow to be ethical,  reproducible and sustainable? What kind of documentation is necessary and at what level of granularity? Are there modelling, standardisation or data management frameworks that make the documentation of workflows easier? What is the role of training and education in preserving and communicating workflows? How do we — both institutionally and conceptually — become better aware of the tacit knowledge and hidden costs which seem to be embedded in most of our day-to-day professional activities? To what extent is the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) affecting our research workflows? What will be the role of responsible, human-centric AI in the future of research workflows? Finally, what should DARIAH do — in addition to treating workflows as a particular content type on the SSH Open Marketplace — to help researchers develop, deploy and disseminate workflows that contribute to the interoperability of data, tools and services?

Important dates:

• Submissions are now open!
• Extended Deadline for submissions: February 11, 2024
• Notification of acceptance: expected by March 25, 2024

Visit the Annual Event Website to read the full Call for Participants, and submit your proposal via ConfTool!

The Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities (DARIAH-EU) is proud to announce it has signed a Cooperating Partnership agreement with the School of Advanced Study at the University of London.

DARIAH is a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) whose mission is to empower research communities with digital methods to create, connect and share knowledge about culture and society. In addition to having 22 Member states, DARIAH has also established a network of cooperating partners in non-member countries.

‘The School of Advanced Study is delighted to be joining DARIAH as a cooperating partner,’ said Jane Winters, Professor of Digital Humanities at the School. ‘We place enormous value on the collaborations and partnerships that DARIAH enables, and look forward to working with colleagues across Europe to enhance support for digital scholarship in the humanities. We very much welcome the opportunity to be part of the DARIAH community and to learn from and contribute to its innovative and exciting programme of activities.’

The School of Advanced Study: The UK’s National Centre for Humanities Research

The School of Advanced Study (SAS) at the University of London plays a unique role in the UK’s research landscape due to its national mission to promote and facilitate research in the humanities. Through its eight research institutes and its specialist hubs for digital humanities and public engagement, it is focused on developing collaborative and distinctive research in the humanities, and in equipping researchers to navigate and contribute to the UK’s research and innovation landscape. The School provides unique humanities research infrastructure, which is underpinned by the research of its academic staff that seeks to advance knowledge beyond disciplinary and institutional boundaries.

Supporting Digital Humanities Research across the UK

The Digital Humanities Research Hub (DHRH) is the centre of digital research at the School. Its multi-disciplinary team includes academics with strong connections to Classics, English, History, and Languages and Cultures, as well as practitioners and researchers from technical backgrounds. The Hub plays a central role in supporting the School’s national mission by promoting digital humanities scholarship across the UK and by providing infrastructure and support for the digital humanities community. The Hub supports national projects and initiatives, collaborates with partners across the UK and around the world, offers training and teaching in digital methods and approaches, and carries out its own interdisciplinary research and supervision. It also hosts a range of international research events exploring subjects including representations of AI, the ethics of 3D and cultural heritage, and hypertext and the humanities.

The Hub’s research strengths in born-digital archives, linked data, text analysis and encoding, and material culture are connected by a shared commitment to valuing digital cultural heritage in all its forms. The Hub seeks to promote an inclusive, open and responsible approach to digital humanities research, as demonstrated through its work to support environmentally responsible digital research practices, multilingual digital research, queer digital heritage and open scholarship.

Efforts to strengthen national, international and cross-sector collaborations underpin the School’s digital research activities. This is reflected in its current major initiatives:

• Hosting and managing the UK-Ireland Digital Humanities Association, in partnership with the universities of Exeter, Glasgow, King’s College London and Southampton in the UK, and Trinity College Dublin, University College Cork and the University of Galway in Ireland. Formally launched in 2023, the Association seeks to nurture the capacity for excellent research and teaching in digital humanities, to establish more effective connections with sectors outside higher education, and to create new pathways for collaboration.
• Participation in the UK’s Towards a National Collection programme, through partnership in the Congruence Engine project led by the Science Museum Group. SAS leads on the digital humanities work package of this three-year research project that uses the latest digital techniques to connect industrial history collections across the UK.
• Leading on the project ‘Mapping the arts and humanities: uncovering hidden research infrastructure in the UK’, which seeks to captures the diversity of this critical infrastructure. The project has produced an interactive map to connect research activity more easily, and boost visibility for research centres and networks across the country.

Strengthening Digital Research Infrastructures with DARIAH

SAS has a shared commitment with DARIAH to strengthen the infrastructure and the provision of an evidence base to support investment in digital humanities research, particularly through the UK-Ireland DH Association. By joining as a cooperating partner SAS seeks to learn from DARIAH’s unparalleled knowledge and expertise in these areas, and to strengthen opportunities for international collaboration in ways that are mutually beneficial to the UK and Europe’s digital research infrastructures. As part of the School’s national mission to train the next generation of humanities researchers, staff are developing open training resources in digital humanities methods and approaches in areas including born-digital culture, 3D technologies and research software engineering. Following DARIAH’s lead in developing open teaching and training resources for the digital arts and humanities, the Hub is keen to contribute to the DARIAH-CAMPUS platform to make our resources more visible and accessible to international audiences.

The Hub’s staff have shared interests with a number of DARIAH Working Groups and are keen to share expertise, particularly in the areas of multilingual DH, linked data, ethical approaches to cultural heritage data and community engagement. The UK-Ireland DH Association has developed a number of reports on subjects including capacity enhancement, next generation careers, and diversity and inclusivity in DH which can contribute to wider European discussions in these areas. The Hub is also currently planning major events and publications with a focus on (born-)digital cultural heritage and welcomes collaborations with DARIAH members on these initiatives.

“As Director of DARIAH, I am thrilled with the co-operating partnership with the School of Advanced Study at the University of London. The School’s Digital Humanities Research Hub, with its expertise in born-digital archives, linked data, and material culture, aligns seamlessly with DARIAH’s mission to empower research communities with digital methods. Together, we embark on a journey to strengthen digital research infrastructure, promote an inclusive and responsible approach to digital humanities, and contribute further to the vibrant DARIAH community. This partnership exemplifies the collaborative spirit that fuels groundbreaking research, and I look forward to the innovative endeavors that will undoubtedly emerge from our shared commitment to advancing knowledge and collaboration in the digital arts and humanities.” — Agiatis Benardou, Member of the Board of Directors of DARIAH.

SAS is delighted to be joining as a cooperative partner at the same time as their close collaborators at King’s College London, and following DARIAH’s existing partnership with Exeter University. Building on existing partnerships through the UK-Ireland DH Association, SAS will work in close collaboration with these partners to strengthen the integration of the UK’s digital humanities community within the DARIAH community.

For more information on the Cooperating Partners membership in DARIAH, their role, tasks and benefits, have a look at our detailed post here.

Alessandra Esposito

The Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities (DARIAH-EU) is proud to announce it has renewed a Cooperating Partnership agreement with King’s College London in the United Kingdom.

DARIAH is a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) whose mission is to empower research communities with digital methods to create, connect and share knowledge about culture and society. In addition to having 22 member states, DARIAH has also established a network of cooperating partners in non-member countries.

“The renewal of our Cooperating Partnership with King’s College London is a key part of our overall strategy to bring DARIAH to the United Kingdom,” said Edward Gray, DARIAH’s Officer for National Coordination. “KCL has a longstanding history with DARIAH, and their strong DH experience and multitude of expertise and tools will be a valuable addition to our ecosystem. This partnership should tie KCL, and the UK, even closer to the European DARIAH network.”

King’s College London (KCL) has a distinguished reputation in the Arts and Humanities and a long tradition of research in the Digital Humanities (DH), going back to the early 1970s with a strong focus on research infrastructures (including the set-up of a central eResearch function). King’s is one of the few places in the world where students at all levels, including PhD, can pursue a wide range of interdisciplinary study involving the application of computing methods and tools in the arts and humanities. This is manifested in two complementary units in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities.

“I’m enthusiastic about the of King’s College London’s collaboration with DARIAH as cooperating partner: this partnership not only amplifies the impact of digital humanities in the UK but also opens doors for enhanced research projects, resource sharing, and knowledge exchange, ultimately strengthening the digital humanities landscape for research and teaching.”

Barbara McGillivray (Lecturer in Digital Humanities and Cultural Computation, DDH)

The Department of Digital Humanities (DDH) concentrates on research and academic teaching in the wider domain of DH and it is the largest department of its kind anywhere. The King’s Digital Lab (KDL), currently a research facility, has the broader remit to increase digital research capability in all arts, humanities and cultural heritage disciplines. The goal of establishing KDL in 2015 was to balance a commitment to intellectual quality and high-quality teaching with high intensity technical development, underpinned by industry-standard approaches to research software engineering (RSE), infrastructure management, and research data management. 

“I am delighted to support this partnership agreement with DARIAH, which will strengthen connections with our fellow European partners and foster greater opportunities for innovation in digital humanities across a vibrant international research community with invaluable experience in developing open science across the arts and humanities.”

Paul Spence (Reader in Digital Humanities, DDH)

Research and Teaching Strengths of KCL

DDH is typically involved in more than 30 major research projects at any one time (with partners such as the British Library, the National Archives, the Tate, the British Museum, the Royal Archives) and offers a dedicated education in DH through a number of programmes: MA in Digital Humanities, MA in Digital Culture and Society, MA in Digital Asset and Media Management, MA in Big Data in Culture and Society, MSc in Digital Economy. It was the first department to launch a PhD programme in DH.

KDL undertakes a range of innovative digital collaborations both with academic staff across the Faculty and with external partners. KDL’s existing digital humanities activities are wide ranging, from creativity and AI, data visualization, machine learning as well as more traditional approaches such as digital scholarly editing, historical prosopographies and literary analysis. KDL actively developing research themes currently include Digital Creativity, (e.g. see Room is Sad and Digital Ghost Hunt), AI and Machine Learning (e.g. see Critical Modelling of Extensive Literary Data), and Indigenous Digital Humanities.

Integration with DARIAH 

The renewed cooperation with DARIAH will allow DDH, KDL and other colleagues in Faculty to strengthen their international collaborations as well as access and contribute to DARIAH resources. The goal in the next three years will be for the UK to achieve full membership in DARIAH via the UK Ireland DH Association (of which KCL is a founding member) acting as the basis for a national consortium liaising with the Arts and Humanities Research Council and itsresearch infrastructures programme. 

“King’s had a very important role in the early conception and set-up of DARIAH via colleagues like Sheila Anderson and Tobias Blanke. This partnership renewal confirms our firm intention to collaborate and follow up on the many other activities we undertook together (such as the DESIR project or the RSE training) as part of a diverse yet united community.” 

Arianna Ciula (Director of KDL)

KDL will support DARIAH Cooperating Research Activities by adding resources, like code repository, onto the SSH Open Marketplace and will contribute with DDH to the Research Data Management working group, the Sustainable Publishing of (meta)Data working group, and the DARIAHTeach working group. In addition to the existing membership of Barbara McGillivray (DDH) to the SSH Open Marketplace editorial board, other outreach and networking activities will be identified on an ad hoc basis.  

Beyond existing working groups, KDL and DDH are assessing appetite for two new Working Groups, one on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) – with a focus on social justice and inclusive practices in DH through collaborations, including involvement of indigenous communities, and one on RSE to leverage on the development of RSE communities of practice of within DARIAH, DH Tech ADHO SIG and the RSE CIG of the UK Ireland DH Association. 

For more information on the Cooperating Partners membership in DARIAH, their role, tasks and benefits, have a look at DARIAH detailed post here.