European Commission funds new research centre for digital text scholarship

According to the project leader, Prof. Liina Lindström, the Institute of Estonian and General Linguistics has long been involved in teaching digital humanities and computational linguistics, and has sought to introduce these future fields to students in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of Tartu. In 2018, the Centre for Digital Humanities and Information Society (see digihum.ut.ee/en) was established for this purpose. “The new project further develops these learning opportunities and significantly enhances research capabilities and expertise through Prof. Maciej Eder and the team he is creating,” said Lindström.  

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The centre, also known as DigiTS, will be led by Prof. Maciej Eder, who is currently Director of the Institute of Polish Language at the Polish Academy of Sciences, and Professor of Literature at the Pedagogical University of Kraków, Poland. Prof. Eder is a highly respected expert in computer-assisted text analysis, essentially a cross-section of literature studies, quantitative linguistics, and computational methodology, especially concerning machine-learning techniques (e.g., neural network technologies and large language models (LLMs)). As a research centre, DigiTS will benefit from an international research team consisting of 3 post-doctoral researchers and 2 PhD students and also provide opportunities for MA-level students to gain experience as research assistants. 

The DigiTS team will conduct world-class humanities research using established methods in neural networks and data analysis to explore textual data. They will also teach the next generation of scholars about these methods. The centre will promote developing, curating, and using LLMs for smaller languages, focusing on Estonian as a pilot example. In addition, DigiTS will support and promote digital humanities in general at the University of Tartu by further developing the minor specialisation of the BA-level curriculum as well as expanding courses on digital humanities to MA and PhD levels. Last but not least, the DigiTS team will serve as a contact point for supporting researchers of humanities and social sciences in applying modern computational methods. 

Read more about the current Centre for Digital Humanities and Information Society, which offers a minor specialisation in Digital Humanities, an elective module, and optional courses. 

Detailed information about the new project DigiTS can be found in ETIS.