Last month, the European Commission published a new success story of EU research featuring DARIAH and its project Humanities at Scale. The HaS-DARIAH project, which ran from 2015 to the end of 2017, built on preparatory work for supporting transnational researchers in all phases of their work: from data acquisition and analysis to publication and archiving.
In HAS-DARIAH, we are supporting a state-of-the-art digital humanities research infrastructure by integrating national initiatives and scaling their work to a European level. This enables new kinds of transnational research and cooperation using digital means.
Marco Raciti, Project Manager, DARIAH Coordination Office in Berlin
Open research agenda
The project ran digital technology training workshops, schools and masterclasses in specific research areas to improve digital skills among humanities scholars. These were a central element of the work, while the masterclasses attracted extra funding.
It actively supported the open research agenda by making toolkits and collections available, for example, by contributing to the Biblissima project for collecting and producing data about the circulation of texts, the history of libraries and the transmission of knowledge in Europe from the 8th to 18th centuries.
Humanities at Scale also boosted Open Access and open methods in the Digital Humanities, creating a platform where communities can learn about open data, locate repositories and promote their own data. This has considerably widened the potential scope of humanities research communities.
To promote these new opportunities, the project appointed ambassadors to raise the profile of DARIAH through workshops and conference presentations.
Expanding through collaboration
The researchers also created several regional hubs bringing together researchers from neighbouring countries to discuss common issues, attract new members and form regional consortia.
The Nordic Hub is a good example that has carried out many joint activities and come forward with proposals for the future.
Marco Raciti, Project Manager, DARIAH Coordination Office in Berlin
The project improved the way it assesses and integrates the tools and data offered by national research infrastructures. These include toolkits, expertise and training courses as well as repositories of valuable information.
Interdisciplinary collaboration with other EU research infrastructures is also supporting the growth of research communities: for example, with the CLARIN research infrastructure for language resources and technology; OPERAS for the development of open scholarly communication; and the CESSDA consortium of European Social Science Data Archives. This collaboration ensures a common vision and the sustainability of SSH research infrastructures.
HaS-DARIAH also investigated new opportunities for humanities research. In 2017, at a Creativity Forum in Aarhus, Denmark, Humanities at Scale held an Innovation Forum to showcase how the creative industries can link to and benefit from digital arts and humanities.
At Aarhus, for the first time, we explored how creative industries, like computer games, social media and design, can draw on the digital humanities resources such as DARIAH for material and inspiration. It’s an important first step.
Marco Raciti, Project Manager, DARIAH Coordination Office in Berlin
You can read the original article at the European Commission’s website.
