DARIAH: Towards a Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities in Europe

Peter DoornCoordinator, Preparing DARIAH project

Director, Data Archiving and Networked Services (NL)Funders meeting

Oxford, 8th December, 2009

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What am I going to tell you?

• How the arts and humanities are changing under the influence of ICT

• The implications of the changes for new requirements of research facilities

• Why DARIAH? The science case for a new infrastructure• The time schedule: What are we doing and where are

we?

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What kind of infrastructure do humanities scholars need?

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From Humanities computingto e-humanities

Roots go back to the 1960s:• text analysis, e.g. bible studies• quantitative social and economic history• computer linguistics• digital archaeology

E-humanities as analogy of e-science:‘science increasingly done through distributed global collaborations enabled by the Internet, using very large data collections, large-scale computing resources and high performance visualisation.’

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Collaborative work, eg. in historical research on shipping

Bringing together shipping records from all over Europein projects such as: “Climate of the World Oceans”, “Atlantic Connections”, “Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade”, etc.

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Shipping Routes 1750-1850(Spain, Netherlands, England, Argenentina)

Courtesy of CLIWOC project, KNMI

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Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

www.slavevoyages.org

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European infrastructure challenges

• In spite of some achievements, existing infrastructures are primarily national... if they are there at all!

• European activities are until now funded on a project basis and carried out as voluntary activities by national partners

• Stable, pan-European research infrastructures for the arts and humanities hardly exist

• Increasing internationalisation of humanities research puts new requirements for such infrastructures

• DARIAH is the only ESFRI proposal for the arts and humanities

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Science Case for DARIAH• Changing research practice in a networked world:

• Digital resources (data & tools) form the laboratory of the scholar in the arts and humanities

• Computational technologies and methods of analysis• Resources on the web are highly distributed• The scale of research goes up: networked projects

• European projects have no continuity• The existing structures are too weak (ad hoc networks, no

permanence) and national in scope• Answer: strong European data infrastructure, providing

continuity and support for digital A&H research and access to digital resources

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Associate and aspiring Partners

• 14 members in 10 countries: Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany (2), Greece (2), Ireland, Netherlands, Slovenia, United Kingdom (3)

• Associate members: Italy, Spain, Sweden

• Aspiring partners: Austria, Switzerland

• Other prospective partners in: Bulgaria, FYROM (Macedonia), Hungary, Lithuania, Norway, Serbia, Rumania

MembersAssociateAspiringProspective

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DARIAH consortium in October 2008 and 2009

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Preparation Project: Overview of the Work Packages

1. Project management2. Dissemination3. Strategic work4. Financial work5. Governance and logistical work6. Legal work7. Technical reference architecture8. Technical: Conceptual modelling

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Preparing DARIAH: time schedule

2008 2009

May 2007Deadline Capacities call

ESFRI projects

Q3 2008Agreement EC

funding

Q4 2008Start “Preparing DARIAH”

20102007

October 2006Publication ESFRI

Roadmap December 2006

Publication relevant FP7 call

Q3 2010 DARIAH

conference

Q1 2011Start construction DARIAH

Financial Commitment?

Q4 2009 Funders’ meeting

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Relations to other projects and networks

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Additional information

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