Digital humanities

Digital data is common in the social sciences and this is also increasingly becoming the case in the humanities which is where the digital humanities have an essential role to play. This field covers digitally enriched editions and reconstructions, the production of maps and networks, complex and multidimensional modelling, remote quantification and analysis, text mining and the mining of natively digital or non-digital corpora for example. CNRS Humanities & Social Sciences supports specialised teams and the Progedo and Huma-Num Very Large Research Facilities as well as many other teams with a strong involvement in the digital humanities through the training of researchers and engineers. There are still vast challenges ahead in the field. Digital humanities practices remain highly accessible but often require profound changes in researchers' habits. Digitising a collection of coins or sheet music or constructing an economics database are long-term projects and using the data collected requires researchers to be familiar with digital interfaces, standards and practices. Support and training for researchers and laboratories in this area requires intermediary services and facilities to be developed in conjunction with the Huma-Num IR* research infrastructure and also in partnership with the MSHs (Houses of Human Sciences) and CNRS Humanities & Social Sciences partners on the sites concerned.

The Huma-Num IR* research infrastructure is dedicated to digital research practices in the humanities and social sciences. Huma-Num provides a range of digital services and tools for research projects at all stages of the data lifecycle including secure storage, hosting, calculation, processing, collaborative work, scientific writing or archiving.

The Nakala data repository and the Isidore search engine enable research teams to maintain, disseminate and report on scientific data and productions in compliance with academic practices in the humanities and social sciences.

These services and tools are linked to a collective consultation process led by national and international research communities within the HN-Consortiums (HN for Humanités Numériques = Digital Humanities), the HN-Lab (an innovation and research centre) and various other partners, including the MSHs and the BnFDataLab.

Huma-Num IR*, with its Nakala data repository, is one of the Reference Centres in the national Recherche Data Gouv open science ecosystem. It is committed to constructing the European Open Science Cloud, and also represents France in the European research infrastructure consortium DARIAH (Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities).

The Huma-Num IR* research infrastructure has been awarded a 'star' by the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research and is managed by the CNRS along with Campus Condorcet and Aix-Marseille University.

https://www.inshs.cnrs.fr/fr/huma-num

Research centers and networks