DaSCH Swiss National Data and Service Center for the Humanities

History and Founding

DaSCH (Data and Service Center for the Humanities) emerged from a pilot program (2013–2016) initiated by the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences (SAGW/ASSH), the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI), and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). The pilot involved the Digital Humanities Lab at the University of Basel together with the Universities of Lausanne and Bern and the Swiss National Archives. Following the pilot, DaSCH was established in 2017 as a national facility operated by SAGW. Since 2021, it has operated as a national research data infrastructure primarily funded by the SNSF. It is structured as an independent association headquartered in Basel, with the University of Basel as its hosting institution. DaSCH also serves as the Swiss coordination office for DARIAH-CH, the national chapter of the European Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities.

Collections and Holdings

DaSCH develops and operates the DaSCH Service Platform (DSP), a FAIR long-term repository and virtual research environment for humanities research data. It preserves datasets from Swiss and international humanities research projects encompassing manuscripts, inscriptions, archaeological records, art history databases, textual editions, and other complex datasets. Persistent identifiers (ARKs) are assigned to all archived objects, enabling precise citation of individual data items.

Notable Materials Related to Journalism and Media

Among the humanities datasets preserved in DaSCH are projects related to media history, print culture, and the digitization of historical textual sources. Its platform supports long-term access to research data from projects that may include historical newspaper and periodical collections as primary sources.

Access and Usage

DaSCH's services are freely accessible online at dasch.swiss. Data can be browsed, searched, and cited. DaSCH provides training and advisory services on research data management, FAIR principles, and data management planning. It participates in European open science infrastructure projects.