News

While curating datasets, we regularly come across gems that deserve to be highlighted. Such is the case with this dataset from the recovery of a Short Stirling W7630 fighter plane in the municipality of Echt-Susteren, Limburg, The Netherlands. This Short Stirling is the first aircraft salvaged according to the ‘National Programme for Salvage of Aircraft Wrecks’ and the research is yielding surprising insights.

As announced at the CLARIAH & NDE Annual Conference on November 24 2022, CLARIAH opens a call for research projects using data from Dutch heritage institutions. The call aims to provide access for researchers to new data and gives heritage institutions the opportunity have their data developed and disseminated.

The new ARIADNEplus portal provides access to more than 4 million sources. DANS ensured that the data of Dutch archaeologists, dendrochronologists and other cultural heritage researchers are included.

From the ARIADNEplus project, which links archaeological data from several European countries, the ARIADNE Virtual Research Lab has been launched. The lab provides researchers with new tools to aggregate, analyse and process data from the ARIADNE infrastructure.



Digital technologies contribute to the accessibility of cultural heritage. Yet there is still a lot to gain. The MuseIT project aims to achieve more inclusiveness in the protection of cultural heritage. DANS cooperates in this project.  

Since spring 2021, DANS has been working on the project “Working together with and on data: DIGILAB and FAIR”. This was an assignment of the Dutch hub of the European Research Infrastructure for Heritage Science (E-RIHS) consortium, E-RHIS.nl, which is in formation. This project carried out a landscape inventory and needs analysis around data management in Dutch heritage science. All findings from the landscape study were compiled in a report (Dutch) that was presented to the E-RIHS.nl working group to promote the further establishment of the network.

Determining the age of archaeological remains in the Dutch soil archive is a crucial part of archaeology. Carbon-14 dating (also known as C-14 dating) is the technique used to determine the age of an organic sample. In recent decades, thousands of C-14 dating studies for archaeological research have been carried out and published in the Netherlands, but these are not publicly available. DANS is helping to change this.

The formation of three science-wide Digital Competence Centres has started. As a first step, the Governing Board of NWO has agreed to allocate a total of 4.5 million euros for the appointment of network coordinators. They will strengthen data intensive research together with experts and infrastructures within their research domain.