The DARIAH Theme is a bi-annual thematic funding call, chosen for investment by the DARIAH Board of Directors. For 2022, we have chosen the topic of Workflows. Previous themes include: ‘Arts Exchanges’ and 'Arts, Humanities and COVID-19' (nine funded projects),  'Strategic Service Sustainability for DARIAH' (six funded projects), ‘Cultural Heritage and Humanities Research’ (seven funded projects), ‘Public Humanities’ (seven funded projects) and ‘Open Humanities’ (6 funded projects).

Workflows

Arts and humanities researchers tend to be multitasking heroes and versatility buffs. This is probably not a matter of choice. Whether we work on digital editions of literary works, analyze historical events by creating and exploiting corpora of digitized newspapers, or model archaeological sites in 3D, our research processes are often quite complex: they involve multiple steps, different tools and a combination of methods. We are no strangers to heterogeneous datasets, modular system architectures, metadata crosswalks and software pipelines. And we are increasingly aware of the importance of data sharing and the notion of reproducible research in the age of Open Science. A scholarly process may start with identifying and collecting data and end with the publication of some research outputs, but the very beginning and the very end never tell the full story of the research data lifecycle.  

In this year’s DARIAH Theme Call, we are looking for proposals and projects that will explore, assess, analyze and embody the challenges of designing, implementing, documenting and sharing digitally-enabled workflows in the context of arts and humanities research from a technical, methodological, infrastructural and conceptual point of view.  

What is the state of the art in research workflows in the digital arts and humanities? What are we doing well, and what should we do better? How can we evaluate the appropriateness of a workflow or assess its efficiency? What makes a workflow innovative? What does it mean for a workflow to be truly reproducible? Are there modeling or standardization frameworks that make this job easier? What kind of documentation is necessary and at what level of granularity? What are the hidden costs of our workflows? What should DARIAH do – in addition to treating workflows as a particular content type on the SSH Open Marketplace – to help researchers develop, deploy and disseminate better workflows?  

How to apply

To apply, please submit a proposal (3–4 pages in length) which will include:

• A description of the goals of the project, an implementation plan and expected outcomes

• An explanation of how your project will specifically address this year’s DARIAH Theme

• The number of people involved in the project

• The name and postal address of the budget holding institution administering the grant

• The name and e-mail address of the contact person of the budget holding institution which coordinates the project.

• A budget (no more than 1 page).

Applications must be submitted on the website: https://dariahtheme2022.sciencesconf.org/ AND by e-mail to theme@dariah.eu.

The scientific committee for the reviewing process will comprise members of the DARIAH Senior Management Team with additional invited experts, as needed. In the case of successful submission, a grant agreement will be signed between DARIAH and the budget holding institution. The grant agreement will include a template for the final technical report and a template for the final financial report.

Terms and conditions

• Institutions situated in a DARIAH member country or a DARIAH Observer country, or institutions which have the status of a DARIAH Cooperating Partner are eligible to lead a DARIAH Theme project.

• Maximum allowable budget is €10,000 per project, but please note that value for money will be an assessment criterion. DARIAH reserves the right to award less than the maximum requested amount to selected projects. 

• The awarded proposals will be required to contribute their workflows to the SSH Open Marketplace, where appropriate.

• Successful applicants are expected to make their project results openly available following DARIAH’s Open Access Guidelines (HAL ID: halshs-02106332 ). They are also required to share both their outputs and their project reports either in the HAL DARIAH collection or as a part of the ZENODO DARIAH community. For practical information about self-archiving, please consult DARIAH’s green Open Access guide (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.3070068).

• Successful applicants will be required to present the results of their funded projects during the DARIAH Annual Event 2024 (late spring).

• We explicitly encourage applicants of DARIAH Theme call proposals to consider a gender balanced constitution of their team (please also see: Gender Equality Plan | DARIAH).

Eligible costs

Eligible costs under the scheme include:

• Technical development including software, APIs, case studies, test suites

• Content development including documentation and educational materials 

• Travel and subsistence for project members to facilitate their interaction and creation of project outputs

• Organization and hosting of events (seminars, workshops, hackathons etc.) to reach a particular audience or community

• Costs related to administrative support (overheads) up to a maximum of 8% of the budget.

• Travel costs for one to two representatives of the project team to the Annual Event 2024 to present the results.

Any other types of cost not explicitly mentioned by the foregoing provisions, need to be approved by DARIAH before the start of the project.

Please note that personal costs of permanent staff are not eligible.

Allocation of funds will have to comply with the budget principles of the institution administering the grant, but will be cross-checked by DARIAH. All expenses must be documented.

Key dates

• Deadline for submissions: October 3, 2022

• Review process: until October 21, 2022

• Notifications to applicants: by the end of October 2022

• Signature Grant Agreements: November/December 2022

• Start date of projects: Upon signature of Grant Agreement

• End date of projects: 30 June 2024