Digital Humanities Heidelberg Center for Digital Humanities (HCDH)
Welcome to the sites of the Heidelberg Center for Digital Humanities!
Working with digital data and thus the changes in thinking and research in the humanities is a now constant part of the Digital Humanities. Clearly defining and framing it alone is a major challenge due to its highly dynamic nature. The HCDH makes its contribution by providing sustainable support along the key areas of Digital Heritage and Digital Linguistics as well as related research areas and topics together with the service partners in the field. In addition, the aspect of digitality as an overarching theme represents a core topic in the engagement with the Digital Humanities at HCDH. The center strives for far-reaching networking, designs joint events and offers funding measures for innovative projects. On the one hand, this enables the best possible advancement of research in the focus topics and, on the other hand, to consolidate the basic competencies in the DH in Heidelberg.
After the HCDH was founded at the end of 2022 from the initiative of the Research Council of the Field of Focus 3 and the resulting "Heidelberg Forum Digital Humanities (HFDH), it has by now grown into an established hub for applicational and methodological advice, teachings and training opportunities in the areas of research, teaching and service. Regarding the dynamic developments in the field of Large Language Models (LLMs), the HCDH has launched the pilot project ParzivAI to expand competencies in the computational humanities. In order to become and remain connected with the dynamic field, the HCDH plans to produce an open source research output from 2025 onwards. To do so, it has, for example, set up the CAEDHET research group in collaboration with the Heidelberg School of Education and the Heidelberg University of Education, which will develop LLM-based tools for the humanities and design them in an application-oriented manner.
The HCDH is staffed by the managing director, an interdisciplinary board, and the center's management. It offers facilitation of various services and invites participation in a working group for researchers, through which new developments in the Digital Humanities can directly inform strategy development.
Members of the university may apply for membership in the center at any time by contacting the board of directors. All applications for funding from the Excellence Strategy for Digital Humanities projects will also be directed to the scientific director of the HCDH. A central criterion of incoming applications should be the aspects of interdisciplinarity and sustainability in the field of data management and implementation as a best practice example for future projects. Thematically, the topics of Digital Heritage and Digital Linguistics are particularly encouraged. Applications with the overarching theme of 'Digitality' are also possible.
Director
Dr. Vahram Atayan
atayan@uni-heidelberg.de
Management
Dr. Nele Schneidereit
nele.schneidereit@uni-heidelberg.de
Scientific Director
Dr. Florian Nieser
florian.nieser@uni-heidelberg.de
