Launching DARIAH-ERIC: the arts and humanities go digital

Monday, November 24th, 2014

DARIAH, the Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities, was launched as an ERIC (European Research Infrastructure Consortium) on 17 November in Paris. DARIAH-ERIC is established for twenty years and brings together 15 countries as founding members. EHRI is a DARIAH affiliated project and makes use of the expertise and activities of DARIAH-partners. EHRI’s Project Director Conny Kristel and Executive Team member Tobias Blanke are also part of DARIAH’s new Board of Directors.

DARIAH’s vision

DARIAH’s vision is to enhance and support digitally-enabled research across the arts and humanities, and to facilitate the provision of services and activities for the digital arts and humanities research community in Europe and beyond.

Portfolio of services and activities

DARIAH integrates national digital arts and humanities initiatives in Europe and operates a platform to enable trans-national research. It offers a portfolio of services and activities centred around research communities and develops a research infrastructure for sharing and sustaining digital arts and humanities knowledge.

By bringing together national activities from member countries, DARIAH will be able to offer a broad spectrum of services including training initiatives, such as summer schools and trans-national curricula, a knowledge repository with standards and good practices for digital asset management, and guidance on repository certification. Platforms for data sharing and digital publishing will be offered alongside technical systems for persistent identification, authentication and long-term preservation.

Founding members

The DARIAH-ERIC was established for 20 years by the European Commission on 15 August 2014 with 15 founding members: Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, The Netherlands, Serbia and Slovenia. France is the host country of the DARIAH-ERIC.

Leadership

To provide leadership for the day-to-day activities of DARIAH-EU, on 5 September 2014, the General Assembly of the newly established DARIAH-ERIC voted unanimously to appoint Tobias Blanke (King´s College London, United Kingdom, and EHRI Executive Team), Conny Kristel (NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, The Netherlands, and EHRI Project Director) and Laurent Romary (Inria, France) as the DARIAH-ERIC Board of Directors.

High-level launch

DARIAH’s high-level launch took place on 17 November 2014 at the Ministère de l’Education nationale, de l’Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche in Paris. The event brought together researchers from across Europe, as well as representatives from the European Commission and various scientific institutions.

For more information, www.dariah.eu.

Photo: Handing over the DARIAH-ERIC plaque to the Board of Directors. From left to right: on video screen Robert-Jan Smits (General Director, DG Research and Innovation, European Commission), Ana Arana Antelo (Head of Unit – Research & Innovation – European Commission), Laurent Romary, Tobias Blanke and Conny Kristel. (Photo thanks to Wolfram Horstmann)