Organization and Governance

Organizational Overview

DARIAH-EU is a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) for the Arts and Humanities, which supports researching and teaching in E-Science. The consortium understands itself as a cooperative undertaking that is carried out by organizations in its Member Countries, DARIAH’s Cooperating Partners and several affiliated projects.

The following is an overview of the most important bodies and concepts related to DARIAH-EU’s work. For a more detailed account consult the DARIAH-ERIC statutes.

Executive Bodies in DARIAH-EU

General Assembly (GA)

The General Assembly is the governing and primary executive body of DARIAH, made up of the ministerial representatives of its member countries. It decides, for example, to accept new Members, approves financial reports and the annual activity report to its Members and the EU Commission. It also sets out the overall strategic goals of the ERIC for implementation by the Virtual Competency Centres (VCCs), in conjunction with the Board of Directors and the Scientific Board. Each Member country is represented in the DARIAH General Assembly. The General Assembly relies on the Board of Directors.

Board of Directors (BoD)

DARIAH-EU has three directors. The BoD informs the work of the General Assembly, assisting primarily with its agenda, after consulting with the Senior Management Team. The BoD is supported by the DARIAH-EU Coordination Office (DCO) regarding day-to-day operations.

Advisory Bodies in DARIAH-EU

Scientific Board

The Scientific Board advises DARIAH, via the General Assembly, on specific issues, such as the future research landscape and technological innovation. Its members are arts and humanities researchers with international reputation in the field and therefore significant experience in digitally enabled research methods.

Coordinating Bodies in DARIAH-EU

National Coordinators Committee (NCC)

Each DARIAH Member Country has its own National Coordinator, who oversees DARIAH activities in his or her country on behalf of its national membership consortium. These activities are the setting up of a national road map for the digitally enabled arts and humanities, and coordinating the submission of in-kind contributions, such as the tools, services, software, collections, expertise and researcher networks that are established as a result of implementing the respective national road map. The NCC meets regularly to integrate national DARIAH activities at the European level.

Senior Management Team (SMT)

The Board of Directors consults the SMT on all general matters. The SMT is composed of the Chair and the Vice-Chair of the National Coordinators Committee, as well as the Chair and Vice-Chair of the Joint Research Committee. In addition, the Chair of the Scientific Board and the relevant officers of the DARIAH-EU Coordination Office are invited to attend Senior Management Team meetings. The SMT play a pivotal role in ensuring the balanced input of all of DARIAH’s constituent bodies.

Implementation Bodies in DARIAH-EU

Joint Research Committee (JRC)

The JRC organises the integration of DARIAH’s technical developments and innovation activities. It is chaired by DARIAH’s Chief Integration Officer (CIO) and consists of the Heads of each of DARIAH’s Virtual Competency Centres.

Virtual Competence Centers

In order to develop, curate and maintain resources and services, DARIAH relies on four Virtual Competency Centres (VCC) and working groups. The VCCs coordinate the Working Groups and define the general parameters under which they work.

Working Groups

In these groups researchers from all DARIAH-EU partners share their expertise and work together to seed, test and deliver services, training, know-how and effective networks for the researcher and user community, to build up and expand existing infrastructure and knowledge transfer. These services can therefore be scholarly, technical, educational or organisational in nature.

Administrative Bodies in DARIAH-EU

DARIAH Coordination Office (DCO)

The daily work of DARIAH-EU is undertaken by the DCO; headed by the Chief Executive Office (CEO), assisted by the Chief Coordination Officer (COO), it is responsible for financial, legal, coordination and communications operations in respect of all the above bodies for the effective running of the ERIC. It has distributed operations and offices in France (Paris), Germany (Berlin and Göttingen), and the Netherlands (The Hague).

Stakeholder Bodies in DARIAH-EU

DARIAH-EU closely cooperates with several affiliated organizations, such as CLARIN, Europeana and LIBER, as well as specific projects in expert domains, such as EHRI, PARTHENOS, and E-RIHS PP). DARIAH aims to provide significant aspects of the collective infrastructure to facilitate and ensure the effective execution of European research programmes and projects in the digitally enabled Arts and Humanities.