Four new CATCH projects receive funding

20 April 2009

In 2009, four new projects start within the programme Continuous Access To Cultural Heritage (CATCH). The International Scientific Advisory Board (ISAB) recommended to NWO on the proposals submitted in the CATCH round 2008. The ISAB members spoke highly of the multidisciplinary and innovative character within the CATCH research programme. In their opinion the proposals were qualitative of a high level, despite the considerable challenges applicants are facing with to bridge different disciplines and cultures.

The four funded projects are as follows:

Creating the historic fabric for and providing web-enabled access to objects in dynamic historical sequences (Agora)
The collections of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision in Hilversum jointly form an inexhaustible source of data about and objects from Dutch history. Yet the associated information about historic events is linked to these collections in many different ways. This makes it difficult to access knowledge about specific historical developments via these audio-visual and visual sources.

Based on several pilots that are related to current canonical debates, Agora is facilitating and investigating the digitally-mediated access that the Rijksmuseum and the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision offer to sources from the past. This must ultimately lead to a web-based interactive space on the interpretation of historical sources for both heritage professionals and interested members of the public.
Main applicant: prof. Susan Legêne (Free University Amsterdam)
Partners: Free University Amsterdam, the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision and the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

Building Rich Links to Enable Television History Research (BRIDGE)

Television is no longer an independent entity. Broadcasting companies are now platforms and providers of multimedia information. The traditional TV archive is being extended to include other sources so that a meaningful web of information can be realised. The aim of the BRIDGE project is to generate automatic links and associations between sources related to a television archive.
Main applicant: prof. Maarten de Rijke (University of Amsterdam)
Partners: University of Amsterdam, Utrecht University and Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision.

Historical Timeline Mining and Extraction (HITIME)

There is a wealth of information in different forms about the labour movement during the period 1850-1940, which includes biographies, letters and other personal material. HITIME aims to provide a software tool kit for historical research. This will enable a large-scale analysis of the links between people, professions, locations, events and schools of thought in order to create a clear picture of the labour movement’s social network. The tool kit shall also be made suitable for generic historical text mining.
Main applicant: prof. Antal van den Bosch (Tilburg University)
Partners: Tilburg University and the International Institute of Social History (IISG)

Linking system for historical family reconstruction (LINKS)

Since 1811, the birth, marriage and death certificates of every person in the Netherlands have been kept. Countless volunteers are digitising the information about these people in GENLIAS. By linking these data together, a wealth of knowledge can be derived in areas such as historical demography (child mortality), historical sociology (social mobility) and epidemiology and genetics. In that linking process due consideration is given to matters such as incorrect spelling and regional deviations in the names.
The LINKS project aims to reconstruct all families in the Netherlands from the 19th and early 20th century, using techniques such as fuzzy matching and self learning.
Main applicant: prof. Kees Mandemakers (International Institute of Social History (IISG-KNAW), Erasmus University Rotterdam)

Partners: IISG-KNAW, Utrecht University, Virtual Knowledge Studio (VKS-KNAW), LIACS (Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science, Leiden University), P.J. Meertens Institute (KNAW), Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI-KNAW), Historic Centre of Overijssel (HCO) and Tresoar (Friesian Centre for history and literature).

Prior procedure and follow-up

In April 2008, NWO received 29 preproposals in response to the published Call for Proposals. Out of these preproposals 13 applicants received the recommendation to submit a full proposal. Based on the advice of the International Scientific Advisory Board, the steering group of CATCH decided to fund the four abovementioned research proposals.
The quality of the applications and the number of preproposals indicate a clear demand in the field for an interdisciplinary research that brings together the areas of cultural heritage, the humanities and computer science. That is exactly what the research programme CATCH aims for. More funding for a next round of CATCH is therefore highly desirable.