The CLARIAH-ES strategic research network will support and contribute to the management and national coordination of the European Research Infrastructure Consortia (ERIC) CLARIN (focused on digital data and processes related to Language) and DARIAH (focused on digital data and processes related to arts and humanities scholars). In the current context of digital transformation, study, research and development in the humanities, arts and social sciences require scientific and technological infrastructures that allow for the computational processing of textual, visual, numerical and/or audio data. These infrastructures promote multilingualism, digital methods, interoperability, maintenance and reuse of resources, open science, visibility and scientific cooperation in Europe, thus overcoming the fragmentation of research communities and increasing the impact of their research. Although both CLARIN and DARIAH are independent ERIC infrastructures, some European countries have formed joint CLARIAH consortia. The INTELE strategic network (2020-2022) articulated and agreed upon a common proposal for a national CLARIAH-ES consortium that has allowed for the oficial incorporation of Spain into both infrastructures as of September 2023.
by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and
Universities within the framework of the State Program to
Promote Scientific-Technical Research and its Transfer
(RED2022-134527-E).1 It continues and consolidates the
work carried out by the INTELE strategic network [
CLARIAH-ES consists of Spanish researchers who are
associated, by previous participation or current interest,
with the two principal European research infrastructures
for the humanities and social sciences CLARIN3 [
3https://www.clarin.eu 4https://www.dariah.eu
With this in mind, CLARIAH-ES seeks to bring together groups that have a stake in these European research infrastructures and that wish to reduce the digital divide, promoting new multidisciplinary lines of research in the humanities, arts and social sciences (and beyond) by facilitating their digital transformation with the help of language technologies.
working with CLARIN and DARIAH for many years and their joint efort has increased the visibility of the infrastructure and helped it become operable. Their previous and current cooperation includes, for example:
The Spanish CLARIN K-Centre5 [
The IMPACT CLARIN K-Centre7 is a consortium of six European institutions and has been maintained at the University of Alicante since 2019. Its mission is to make the digitization of printed historical texts better, faster, and more economical. The center provides tools, services and facilities to further advance the fields of document digitization, language technology, and historical text processing.
The Digital Laboratory of Digital Humanities8 (LINHDUNED) has been a DARIAH Cooperating Partner since July 2022.
The general objective of the strategic network is to coordinate the creation, development, and dissemination of the CLARIAH-ES research infrastructure. In so doing, we hope to contribute to the advancement of the research in the humanities, arts, and social sciences and to its strategic positioning in national and international projects, mainly in the context of the European Research Area. The more specific objectives of CLARIAH-ES are: 5http://ixa2.si.ehu.eus/clarin-es/en/node/41 6https://www.upf.edu/es/web/iulaterm/projectes/-/ asset_publisher/u0y6OTKl0s67/content/iula-upf-cc-clarin/ maximized 7https://www.digitisation.eu/ 8https://linhd.uned.es/?lang=en • Design and coordinate the CLARIAH-ES infrastructure. • Integration within CLARIN and DARIAH research infrastructures. • Understand the requirements of researchers, groups, and projects that need the support of digital content, tools, and resources. • Promote and facilitate the participation of research communities that are working in the humanities, arts, and social sciences in CLARIAHES. • Produce the required annual reports and documentation describing the progress of the infrastructure.
General project management to cover all administrative activities, supervision and coordination of the other work packages, as well as the promotion and dissemination of the project results. This WP includes the management and coordination of the CLARIAH-ES strategic network and the coordination and collaboration with CLARIN-EU and DARIAH-EU.
WP3 CLARIAH-ES Infrastructure (Leader: HiTZ
UPV/EHU). Design and coordination of the CLARIAH-ES infrastructure: committees, managers, work packages, centers, activities, CLARIAH-ES ofice, etc. This WP includes the design of CLARIAH-ES infrastructure design. The deployment and coordination of the CLARIAH-ES infrastructure (see WP3 and WP4). Continuous training in the CLARIAH-ES infrastructure. Surveys to collect data and unite needs and objectives and the assessment of the work carried out in the CLARIAH-ES network.
WP3 CLARIN (Leader: HiTZ-UPV/EHU). Coordination of CLARIN-EU activities in CLARIAH-ES. The coordination, management and deployment of CLARIN-EU activities is one of the main objectives of the CLARIAH-ES network. In addition, CLARIAH-ES must participate in the diferent committees and working groups of CLARIN-EU, as well as in its annual meetings, workshops and conferences. In particular, this WP covers the design and specification of CLARIN-EU in-kind contributions. The deployment and coordination of CLARIN-EU activities in CLARIAH-ES. The participation in CLARIN-EU committees and working groups and the participation in annual meet- in Spain (Spanish, Catalan, Basque and Galician), and ings, workshops and conferences organized by experts in digital transition in the areas of humanities, CLARIN-EU. arts and social sciences.
WP4 DARIAH (Leader: LINHD-UNED). Coordination The current CLARIAH-ES consortium is made up of of DARIAH-EU activities in CLARIAH-ES. The the UPV/EHU (HiTZ), the University of Santiago de Comcoordination, management and deployment of postela (Instituto da Lingua Galega and CiTIUS), the UniDARIAH-EU activities is another main objec- versity of Alicante (Miguel de Cervantes Virtual Library tive of the CLARIAH-ES network. Likewise, Center), the UNED (LINDH and LENAR), the Barcelona CLARIAH-ES must also participate in the various Supercomputing Center (BSC), the Complutense Univercommittees and working groups of DARIAH-EU, sity of Madrid (UCM), the University of Jaén (CEATIC), as well as in its annual meetings, workshops and ULPGC (IATEXT), the CSIC (Spanish National Research conferences. In particular, this WP covers the Council) and the National Library of Spain (BNE) (See design and specification of DARIAH-EU in-kind Figure 1). contributions. The deployment and coordination HiTZ - Basque Center for Language Technology9 of DARIAH-EU activities in CLARIAH-ES. The (UPV/EHU) is a multidisciplinary research center with participation in DARIAH committees and work- members from diferent departments of the University of ing groups and the participation in annual meet- the Basque Country. The aim of the center is to research ings, workshops and conferences organized by language and speech technologies. It is formed by two DARIAH-EU. research groups Aholab and Ixa, both with extensive exWP5 Workshops (Leader: BVMC-UA). Organize on an perience in the field of language and speech technologies, annual basis a series of workshops on research performing basic research, creating resources and tools, that can be developed thanks to the services, re- and launching several commercial products to the marsources, and tools of research infrastructures in ket. HiTZ is also a center of reference for endangered the humanities, arts and social sciences. The and under-resourced languages. The center currently workshops are an essential space for the com- has 80 members. It is a leader in the application of deep munity to learn about the possibilities ofered by learning techniques to language and speech processing. the CLARIN-EU and DARIAH-EU infrastructures, HiTZ is also a member of the European Erasmus Mundus+ carry out a needs analysis of CLARIAH-ES, es- Masters Program in Language and Communication Techtablish connections and collaborations between nologies (LCT) and ofers a Doctoral Program in Lanresearch groups, publish the most relevant works guage Analysis and Processing. From 2017 to 2021 HiTZ and projects of the community, and seek collab- participated in CLARIN’s Knowledge Sharing Infrastrucoration on open problems jointly. In particular, ture (KSI) commission and is a coordinating member of this WP plans to organize several meetings and the Spanish CLARIN-K Centre and the central ofice of two workshops. CLARIAH-ES.
WP6 Communication and dissemination (Leader: BVMC - Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes10 HiTZ-UPV/EHU). A strategic communication (UA) was created in 1999 and was established as the Cenplan will be established, focusing on impact and ter for Digital Humanities at the University of Alicante visibility in diferent areas and for diferent com- in 2021. Its purposes are to promote research, knowlmunities and types of users. Communication edge transfer, design and development of technologies channels will be established through which the related to the humanities and digital libraries. The Center activities and results of the project will be dissem- makes relevant cultural works in the diferent Hispanic inated: web pages, mailing lists, social networks, languages available to users around the world free of blogs, and other appropriate media. charge, as well as the most relevant research and studies surrounding them. It also has the missions of promoting research in the diferent areas of the digital humanities and carrying out the development and analysis of technological tools and services that facilitate the use and exploitation of the growing set of digitized materials. The BVMC is a member of the IMPACT Competence Centre, a CLARIN K-Centre.
BSC-CNS - Barcelona Supercomputing Center Centro Nacional de Supercomputación11 is a leading
achieved by bringing together the necessary resources in terms of data, computing facilities and knowledge that are not available to any one research group in Spain. CLARIAH-ES is formed by a multidisciplinary group of ten leading research centers in Language Technologies (TL), Artificial Intelligence (AI), High Performance Computing (HPC), linguistic experts in the oficial languages
multidisciplinary research center, supported by a public intense research activity in the fields of Galician linguisconsortium formed by the Spanish and Catalan public ad- tics and philology and, at the same time, in the developministration and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia. ment of technological tools and applications that make The BSC-CNS hosts high-performance computing infras- available to the academic community and society in its tructures serving the international scientific community the knowledge generated within the framework of reand is a Tier 1 member of the European Association search activities. CITIUS develops its research in ten arfor Advanced Computing in Europe (PRACE) research eas, including Linguistic Technologies. The center stands infrastructure. BSC also manages the Spanish Supercom- out for its work in Natural Language Processing, both in puting Network (RES), a Singular Scientific-Technical basic research related to the creation and evaluation of Infrastructure and supports the international biomedical linguistic resources and models as well as in the developcommunity, coordinating the Elixir and INB-ISCII infras- ment of applications. tructures. The diferent research areas, grouped in four CLARIAH-CM, led by Universidad Complutense Departments (Computer Sciences, Life Sciences, Earth (UCM),14 in which all public universities of the ComuSciences and Computer Applications), have European, na- nidad de Madrid participate: Universidad de Alcalá, Unitional and regional funding, mostly competitive, as well versidad Autónoma de Madrid, Universidad Carlos III, as through collaboration with leading companies. Sev- Universidad Rey Juan Carlos and Universidad Politécnica. eral of the research projects currently underway belong LINDH15 and LENAR16 (UNED) are both leading reto the fields of Natural Language Processing, Artificial search centers in the area of digital humanities and natuIntelligence, Social Sciences and Humanities and Digital ral language processing. UNED is characterized by teachArt. ing and research excellence and by promoting the transfer ILG12 and CiTIUS13 (USC) has carried out since 1971 12https://ilg.usc.gal/en 13https://citius.gal/ 14https://www.ucm.es/loep/equipo 15https://linhd.uned.es/ 16https://sites.google.com/view/nlp-uned/home of knowledge in all areas of knowledge, but especially addition to educational, cultural and professional fields. in the field of language technologies applied to science IATEXT has participated in more than twenty funded and digital humanities. UNED is a cooperating partner projects and has developed more than twenty tools and of DARIAH and is part of the Spanish CLARIN-K Cen- applications in the fields of digital humanities and social ter. UNED has participated since 2014 in H2020 projects sciences. together with DARIAH-EU and has technological ser- BNE - La Biblioteca Nacional de España 20 is the vices aimed at the dissemination of the results of digital central depository for the Spanish bibliographic and dochumanities in its central library. umentary heritage that is produced within Spain and
CCHS - Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales17 about Spain abroad in any type of support or medium. (CSIC). The Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cien- Its mission is to gather, catalog, preserve, increase, mantíficas (Spanish National Research Council, CSIC) is the age, disseminate and transmit, in compliance with its largest research institution in Spain. It organizes its re- purposes, this heritage as a source of knowledge for the search projects across 8 Global Areas. Within the Hu- whole of society. The BNE participates in numerous inimanities and Social Sciences Global Area, there are 14 tiatives and projects in collaboration with national and institutes and schools. The Center for Human and So- international institutions and research groups. The digicial Sciences (CCHS) in Madrid serves as an integrated tal transformation processes at the institution have led to service center supporting researchers from six of these the availability of new digital resources, textual corpora, institutes: the Institute of Languages and Cultures of the and data sets, creating great potential for research. The Mediterranean and the Middle East (ILC), the Institute BNE actively promotes dissemination and use, as stated of Philosophy (IF), the Institute of Economy, Geography, in its Strategic Plan, within the framework of the BNElab and Demography (IEGD), the Institute of Public Goods program to encourage innovation and digital reuse, inand Policies (IPP), the Institute of History (IH), and the In- cluding through support for the development of textual stitute of Language, Literature, and Anthropology (ILLA). technologies, Artificial Intelligence or digital humanities. The CCHS comprises 18 departments and 62 research groups, maintaining constant interaction and collaboration with other CSIC institutes and schools. Several 6. Expected Results and Impact Humanities and Social Sciences projects are among the 72 research groups participating in the CSIC’s AIHub.
CEATIC - The Center for Advanced Studies in Information and Communication Technologies 18 (UJA) aims to bring together research groups, resources and instrumental means that allow the advancement of knowledge, development and innovation in the field of information and communication technologies through education, scientific research and technological development of excellence. The research group on Intelligent Information Access Systems (SINAI) at the University of Jaén has more than twenty years of experience in NLP research, with uninterrupted funding through competitive calls (European, national, regional, local) and around twenty industrial technology transfer projects.
IATEXT - The Research Institute of Text Analysis and Applications19 (ULPGC) is currently made up of nine divisions distributed between diferent areas within the fields of humanities and computer science. Its research focuses on the revision and analysis of diferent types of texts from interdisciplinary perspectives (linguistic, literary, historical, computational, heritage, etc.), as well as the computational treatment and digitization of any type of data in these areas. IATEXT’s general objective is to produce results in basic research and develop multimedia computer applications for research in
for the humanities and social sciences in Spain are evident. As we confirmed in the INTELE strategic network, researchers require data (dificult to access or dispersed) as well as tools and work methods (often specific for Spanish and other co-oficial languages such as Galician, Catalan and Basque) that can only be produced by their own infrastructures for their own needs. Without these, Spanish researchers risk losing their presence in eHumanities publications and are unable to participate in competitive projects and European research infrastructures.
Fortunately, Spanish researchers have demonstrated clear signs of interest in exploiting these distributed infrastructures, fully operational in Europe since 2016 (ESFRI LANDMARK 2016).21 Thus, the objective of the CLARIAH-ES network is to design, coordinate and deploy the CLARIAH-ES infrastructure, promoting the participation of Spanish researchers in the European CLARINERIC and DARIAH-ERIC infrastructures. Through these eforts, we anticipate an increase in research projects and scientific production, as well as an improvement of national and international positioning in the areas of the humanities, arts, and social sciences.
The main results we expect from the CLARIAH-ES strategic network are: 17https://www.cchs.csic.es/es 18https://www.ujaen.es/centros/ceatic/en 19https://iatext.ulpgc.es 20https://www.bne.es/en 21https://www.esfri.eu/ • Increased visibility of the new CLARIAH-ES infrastructure (data, services and tools, success stories, research communities, etc.). • Increased sustainability and visibility of the results of national research projects. • Increased interdisciplinarity and multidisciplinarity. • Increase in opportunities for national, European, and Ibero-American research and collaboration. • Increase in funding and the possibility of obtaining projects at the European level through the articulation of Spain, as a result of this network collaboration, within the infrastructures. • Increased visibility of national research in the eHumanities at the European level, along with CLARIN-EU and DARIAH-EU and the rest of the European SSHOC infrastructures. • Increased interaction with the cultural and creative industry (GLAM). • Increased interaction with the agents of the new language economy.
In summary, the CLARIAH-ES strategic network seeks
a tangible impact on society. Through the greater
exchange of knowledge, data, technologies, infrastructures,
skills, and best practices, we aim to amplify the potential
of research projects. This collaborative synergy will not
only ensure the sustainability of tools and services, but
also foster collaborative environments. Our aspirations
transcend borders, encompassing Europe, Ibero-America,
and the global stage as we endeavour to increase
funding opportunities for vital infrastructures. The
interdisciplinarity of the participating research groups, which
includes areas of research as diverse as computer science,
philology, social sciences, history, etc., ensures a broad
contribution from diferent perspectives. By properly
weaving together these perspectives, we can develop
research results that are useful for promoting high-impact
digital tools and artificial intelligence applications in
different social science and digital humanities scenarios,
including research and cultural infrastructures such as
libraries and museums [
the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities within the framework of the State Program to Promote Scientific-Technical Research and its Transfer (Plan Estatal de Investigación Científico-Técnica y su Transferencia) (RED2022-134527-E).