The European Union’s Horizon 2020 funded project DESIR was officially launched in Berlin on 24 April, 2017. The meeting was held in Centre Marc Bloch and DARIAH DCO premises. DESIR stands for “DARIAH-ERIC Sustainability Refined” and will run until the end of December 2019. The DESIR project officially started in January and, besides the kick-off, project partners successfully started interacting and first deliverables have been submitted.
DARIAH Directors Laurent Romary and Frank Fischer welcomed participants and stressed the importance of the project for the overall DARIAH sustainability. The project manager Marco Raciti introduced the kick-off meeting and discussed management and financial issues. Then, Work Package leaders were invited to present and discuss work packages.
The kick-off meeting was the occasion to develop a plan on next steps and adopt common policies. Furthermore, the kick-off meeting was organised in order to maximise its impact. A joint DESIR WP3 “Growth”/NCC was held the day after as well as a WP4 “Technology” meeting. Also, the participants had the opportunity to attend the DARIAH Annual Event, which took place the 26-27 April in Berlin.
The DESIR Consortium consists of 15 partners from 12 EU member and associated countries. The DESIR project sets out to strengthen the sustainability of DARIAH and firmly establish it as a long-term leader and partner within arts and humanities communities.