Exeter Joins Prestigious European Network of Digital Humanities Experts

The University of Exeter has joined the prestigious DARIAH ERIC organisation as a Cooperating Partner.

The Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities (DARIAH) ‘aims to enhance and support digitally-enabled research and teaching across the arts and humanities’. Since 2014, DARIAH has been established as a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC), bringing together an array of different institutions from across Europe who have a particular expertise in digital arts and humanities. At the DARIAH General Assembly in May, Exeter’s application to join the group as a Cooperating Partner was unanimously approved, seeing the University become a member of a network involving some of Europe’s best universities, libraries, and research institutes.

Exeter’s College of Humanities is home to academics from a wide variety of different disciplines working on a diverse array of digital projects. The Digital Humanities Lab allows academics to carry out exciting projects like curating digital exhibitions, creating digital facsimiles of historic objects, and taking high resolution photographs of ancient manuscripts to ensure their preservation. DARIAH ERIC provides an invaluable network for sharing expertise, methods, and technologies to help address some of the big questions researchers are currently working on.

Exeter’s membership as a Cooperating Partner opens up a significant series of opportunities for staff and students interested in digital humanities. Cooperating Partners are institutions in countries who are not full DARIAH members (EU Member States or other Associated Countries), who offer a significant contribution to the study of digital humanities. As a Cooperating Partner, Exeter can engage with DARIAH ERICs Virtual Competency Centres – clusters of thematic expertise around different digital issues – as well as gaining access to valuable training and education facilities, participating in research projects, and joining Europe’s largest community of digital expertise.

Speaking about this development, Prof Mark Goodwin, Deputy Vice Chancellor for External Engagement, said: “Joining the DARIAH ERIC community is excellent news for the University of Exeter. We are committed to working together with partners from around the world to tackle major research challenges and provide outstanding opportunities for our students, so joining a dynamic European network like DARIAH ERIC fits perfectly with our ambitions. Exeter’s recent investment in digital humanities places us at the forefront of research and teaching in the field. Our staff are already using digital methods to conduct cutting-edge research into cultural artefacts and preserving materials that might otherwise be lost to us. I have no doubt that Exeter can make a big contribution to DARIAH ERIC, whilst ourselves gaining immeasurably from the exchange of people, ideas, and resources that they promote.”