Europe has a long and rich tradition of being a centre for the arts and humanities with our libraries, archives and museums as our original research infrastructures. However, the huge digital transformation that affects the arts and humanities research landscape all over the world requires that we set up sustainable research infrastructures. Digital arts and humanities is a fast growing research field. A major challenge in this regard is that, in many cases, arts and humanities research communities are very fragmented. Even though scholars engage in a vast array of collaborations across Europe, many ad-hoc funded research networks and associations are struggling to preserve their findings and data.
Responding to these challenges, the Digital Research Infrastructure for Arts and Humanities (DARIAH) was launched as a pan-European network and research infrastructure for arts and humanities scholars working with computational methods. DARIAH brings together the tools and services for research in digital arts and humanities; people, partnerships, content, academic recognition, networking, outreach and scholarly communication. Thereby, DARIAH is able to offer a portfolio of tools and services, ranging from a knowledge repository with standards and good practices for digital asset management to platforms for data sharing and digital publishing.
The DARIAH community works together in working groups, with subjects ranging from the assessment of digital tools to the development of standards and the long term accessibility of research materials. Their activities may vary but they all share one common goal: providing services to scholars in the arts and humanities and therefore helping to do research at its best.
Photo: Carmen Morlon