We increasingly live in a world that takes place online in a big data stream. When researchers in the SSH-domain have a good digital infrastructure, it makes their work easier. Researchers can then quickly and securely access the information they need.

CLARIAH en ODISSEI

From the National Roadmap Large-Scale Scientific Infrastructure, many social science and humanities data collections and collections have been brought together within CLARIAH and ODISSEI. In that context, the importance of connecting with the (government-funded) heritage institutions and archives that manage an important part of SSH data should also be mentioned. The embedding in international networking initiatives through five ERICs (European Research Infrastructure Consortium) in the SSH (CLARIN, DARIAH, ESS, SHARE, CESSDA) makes it possible to connect data from different systems, institutions and countries.

PDI-SSH

In recent years, the Foundation Platform Digital Infrastructure SSH (PDI-SSH), created from the SSH-council, has already implemented part of the objectives of the Domain-wide Plan Digital SSH (part B of the Domain View Together Stronger), by organising two calls for infrastructure investments.

PDI-SSH, with funds from the first sectorplan for the SSH-domain (Law/Infrastructure) has funded 22 projects in recent years. The portfolio of awarded projects is very diverse. They include projects providing access to materials and new data sources, an infrastructure creating a Dutch-speaking participant pool for research, projects building annotation tools, and an environment to analyse sensitive data. These initiatives support researchers in different sectors within the SSH-domain (social sciences, humanities, law, economics & business). As the PDI-SSH programme comes to an end, the infrastructures will become accessible to the wider research community.

LBDI-SSH

In addition, in 2023, the SSH-council set up the National Digital Infrastructure Council SSH (LBDI-SSH), a broad national platform of experts and representatives of existing networks such as ODISSEI and CLARIAH, which is committed to coordinating digital infrastructure initiatives in the SSH-domain and to national strategy development. In addition to representatives of ODISSEI and CLARIAH, the platform also includes representatives of NWO, the eScience Centre, SURF and DANS. With this direction group, the SSH-domain will be better able to develop the infrastructure in a coordinated way and with maximum synergy, and to continuously test new developments against the (digital) requirements for sound SSH research. New investments in infrastructure from the GW and SW sectorplans and from the ‘cross-cutting theme’ will also be monitored from this platform.

Latest news

The latest news regarding the development of a digital infrastructure can be found on our news page and LinkedIn.