In 2015, the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts (AWK) assigned the CCeH the role of Central Coordination Office Digital Humanities of the NRW Academy. The close collaboration between both institutions was first established in 2011 to address the profound change that research in the humanities is undergoing, with digital methods and technologies having become integral parts of all Academy projects long since.
The CCeH, after supporting the Academy in the digitization of ongoing Academy projects for many years, assumed responsibility for additional tasks as the central DH coordination office which it carries out for the Academy as an external DH department would. Most importantly, the CCeH provides comprehensive digital support and advice for the Academy and its projects, develops new overarching concepts at the interface of information technologies and the humanities, organizes measures to offer DH training and skill enhancement for employees in Academy’s projects and designs plans to ensure the sustainability of research by archiving, storing and publishing the results. As the central DH coordination office, the CCeH also advises the Executive Committee of the Academy on issues relating to the digital humanities in the context of the Union of the Academies and acts on behalf of the Academy in operational digital matters, such as submitting applications for relevant funding schemes. In the inter-academic DH cooperation, the CCeH also represents the Academy in the eHumanities working group.
The long-term cooperation agreement with the Academy gives the CCeH, as a widely recognized center of excellence in the fields of digital humanities, the opportunity to build a stable structure that continuously provides the necessary professional and technical expertise as well as human resources to support research projects in the humanities. The Academy benefits from cooperating with a strong competence center that supports the individual Academy projects with additional overarching methodological and technical expertise.
The academic governance of the Central Coordination Office lies with the CCeH spokesperson, Professor Dr. Andreas Speer, who is also a member of the Academy.
Advisory Board
| Prof. Dr. Axel Klawonn (Chairman of the Advisory Board; Mathematics, Cologne) |
| Prof. Dr. Julia B. Bolles-Wilson (President of the AWK, Düsseldorf) |
| Karsten Gerlof (Chancellor of the UoC, Cologne) |
| Prof. Dr. Jürgen Hammerstaedt (Secretary of the Class for Humanities AWK; Classical Studies, Cologne) |
| Prof. Dr. Andrea Rapp (German Studies, Darmstadt) |
| Prof. Dr. Patrick Sahle (Digital Humanities, Wuppertal) |
| Prof. Dr. Barbara Schmidt-Haberkamp (Member of the Academic Commission of the Union of the Academies; English Studies, Bonn) |