OpenHuygens.nl awarded Fonds KNAW Instituten grant
The KNAW has awarded Huygens ING a grant from the Fonds KNAW Instituten for the OpenHuygens.nl project. Thanks to this investment, Huygens ING can accelerate the transfer of an important part of the two hundred online resources in the field of Dutch literature, history and scientific history to OpenHuygens.nl, a new data environment that makes these resources more accessible for innovative, digital applications.
Huygens ING has long been known in the humanities domain for its extensive editions and datasets of historical and literary sources and texts. In addition, the institute has taken care of data sets and publications of others that have an infrastructural value for humanities research. The institute now has nearly two hundred resources available online in the field of Dutch literature, history and history of science.
These resources are not only important building materials for various forms of research, but also often provide useful access to yet other sources and texts about the past of the Netherlands. Together, the resources of Huygens ING, therefore, form a fundamental part of the digital infrastructure for the humanities in the Netherlands and abroad.
Open Science
OpenHuygens.nl will be a flexible and modular data environment, where the resources of Huygens ING will be made accessible in accordance with the FAIR data principles. Researchers will soon be able to search across various online resources and download search results to analyse them using digital methods. OpenHuygens.nl makes the resources more usable for research into the history and culture of the Netherlands and new research questions can be asked based on the collection of resources. With this investment in OpenHuygens.nl Fonds KNAW instituten also stimulates Open Science: the aim of the project is that searches can be easily saved, shared and repeated.
Connection and dissemination
Because researchers can more easily utilise the resources outside their own context on the basis of OpenHuygens.nl, there is also more space for the dissemination of the data and for more open and inclusive approaches to Dutch history. Moreover, OpenHuygens.nl makes the online resources more accessible for large-scale infrastructure initiatives such as CLARIAH, CLARIN and the Network Digital Heritage. This makes it possible for researchers to apply the instruments that become available within these initiatives to the resources. In this way the data of the resources can be linked to related (inter) national heritage sources and their significance for research is further enhanced.
