Call for Proposals for DARIAH Signature Project 2026

DARIAH is delighted to announce the first call for a Signature Project with the goal of developing an innovative and sustainable core service that strengthens and expands DARIAH’s infrastructure. The successful project should deliver clear value to the arts and humanities and address a current need for the research community across Europe. A no less important goal is to stimulate substantial collaboration across DARIAH member states.

Inquiries about the scheme can be made to funding@dariah.eu.

Purpose and Scope

Projects may develop new services from scratch, or extend and/or consolidate existing community services, provided the outputs become part of DARIAH’s core offering. Signature Project funding cannot, however, be used merely for rebranding an existing service without delivering new capabilities.

To ensure long-term sustainability, applicants must define their proposed technology stack, which must align with DARIAH’s recommended technologies (see Technical Requirements below). The DARIAH CTO team will advise and support the project during development, with a focus on interoperability and production-grade deployment.

Types of outputs we seek

• New or consolidated research tools that have a demonstrated need in a DARIAH community or communities

• Data services or platforms supporting curated or computational workflows that have visibility within a specific discipline or across multiple disciplines and/or across national nodes

• Interoperability and integration services that connect tools, datasets, and/or communities

• A tool, service, or platform that is relevant to a broad European and potentially global community

Technical Requirements

Signature Projects are expected to demonstrate:

• Use of well-established technologies such as Python, TypeScript, React, relational databases (e.g. PostgreSQL), and triplestores (e.g. QLever), or comparable mature alternatives with strong community support.

• Support for established data formats, vocabularies, and conceptual models for both input and output, with particular attention to Linked Open Data (LOD) principles and the use of RDF, where appropriate.

• Well-defined programmatic access through stable, documented APIs, using REST and/or GraphQL, to enable reuse by other services, workflows, and research infrastructures.

• Federated identity and access management through integration with Authentication and Authorisation (AAI) in line with DARIAH and EOSC practices.

• Replicable and portable deployment workflows based on containerisation technologies (e.g. Docker) that allow the service to be reliably installed, operated, and scaled across different cloud or institutional environments.

Who Can Apply

The call is open to national consortium partners in DARIAH Member Countries. Applications should be collaborative and include at least three DARIAH national consortium partners from three DARIAH member countries. The consortium should include a range of institutions which each contribute to the development of the service.

We explicitly encourage applicants to consider a gender balanced constitution of their team.

Selection Criteria

• Relevance and strategic alignment with DARIAH’s mission

• Innovation and potential impact on research practices in the arts and humanities

• Technical and conceptual soundness of the proposed service

• Openness, interoperability and sustainability of outputs

• Team composition and feasibility of work plan and budget

Funding and Duration

• Funding amount: 125,000€ (lump sum) contribution from DARIAH

• Full project costs should amount to between 150,000€ – 200,000€ including an in-kind contribution

• Project duration: 24 months

• Disbursement: 50% upon signature of a grant agreement between DARIAH and the Lead Institution, 30% upon successful technical mid-term report which needs to be delivered 12 months after the signature of the grant agreement, 20% upon successful final technical and financial report which needs to be delivered 6 weeks before the end of the grant agreement.

How to Apply

Applicants must submit their application by 15 July 2026.

To apply

There is an option to submit a one-page summary proposal for feedback by 5 June. The one-page proposal can be sent to funding@dariah.eu.

Questions?

Inquiries about the scheme can be made to funding@dariah.eu.