The General Assembly of the DARIAH-ERIC recently voted unanimously to accept Iceland’s application for full membership in the Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities.
“We are absolutely delighted to formally welcome Iceland to DARIAH”, said Dr. Agiatis Benardou, President of the DARIAH Board of Directors. “We value the unique perspectives and expertise that the Icelandic Digital Humanities communities bring, and really look forward to our collaboration. Together we will work on building a stronger, more inclusive and interconnected research infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities.”
The DH landscape in Iceland
Iceland is rich in data on Icelandic culture, language, history and arts and is among the most digitally advanced nations. This gives unique opportunities for developing new research within the area of Digital Humanities.
New developments in digital humanities and arts open up possibilities for novel forms of collaboration, internationally and nationally, including new possibilities for citizen science.
The DARIAH-IS/CDHA infrastructure
DARIAH-IS/CDHA boasts a strong, comprehensive consortium of 15 institutions, including major national universities, institutes, libraries and museums that are responsible for research within the arts and the humanities and take care of the collection, curation and mediation of data relevant for research.
Logi Einarsson, Minister of Culture, Innovation and Higher Education in Iceland says that: “Iceland’s accession to DARIAH reflects our strong commitment to the humanities and arts and to open, collaborative research across borders. Developing robust research infrastructure requires international cooperation, and DARIAH provides an essential framework for sharing knowledge, tools, and best practices. Through this partnership, we are proud to support the advancement of digitally enabled humanities and arts, and to strengthen Iceland’s connection to the broader European research community.”
The Icelandic Centre for Digital Humanities and Arts (CDHA) will be the National Coordinating Institution for DARIAH in Iceland. CDHA was established in 2020 as part of a national Roadmap for Research Infrastructure, and has been a DARIAH Cooperating Partner since 2022. It started as a consortium of 10 institutions, but has grown to a group of 15.
CDHA operates as a part of the School of Humanities, University of Iceland. The national DARIAH-IS/CDHA consortium will be a mirror of the CDHA and integrated into all its activities. It will share an office with the CDHA at the University of Iceland and be supported by the administrative staff of the centre, which has great capacity to manage international projects and networks. “Being entrusted with the national DARIAH node at this time shows how far we have come in developing digital infrastructures for research in the humanities and arts in Iceland”, said Eiríkur Smári Sigurðarson, chair of the CDHA.
National priorities
The national consortium, through the CDHA, has received funding to develop the following
projects that align with the DARIAH strategy:
- Develop and produce teaching and training materials for DH projects.
- Develop digital databases and tools to implement DH projects.
- Serve as a platform for collaboration between all major cultural heritage institutions in Iceland to make digitized collections widely available and interoperable.
All these major initiatives will be implemented with a view to incorporating them in the SSH Open Marketplace and DARIAH-Campus.
By joining DARIAH-EU, Iceland aims to link and align Icelandic resources to international resources and provide Icelandic and international scholars with mutual access to expertise and opportunities for peer learning and international collaboration.