About Us
The DaSCH - Swiss National Data and Service Center for the Humanities was initiated by the Digital Humanities Lab (DHLab, University of Basel) and the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences (SAGW) as part of a pilot project anchored in the ERI (Education, Research and Innovation) Dispatch 2013–2016, after a consortium by the universities of Basel, Bern and Lausanne – led by the Digital Humanities Lab at the University of Basel – won a public tender by SAGW. During the pilot phase, a feasibility study for the chosen technical solution was successfully conducted using various data sets.
In 2017, DaSCH was established as a national facility operated by SAGW with a mandate set out in the ERI Dispatch 2017–2020.
Since 2021, DaSCH has operated as a national research data infrastructure primarily funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).
Our quality goals are rooted in our belief in Open Data. Data stored with us is accessible by the FAIR-Principle. FAIR stands for Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability and Reusability. DaSCH strives for a continuing improvement in user friendliness while maintaining the base principle of FAIR Data.
What Makes DaSCH Unique?
DaSCH is among only a handful of FAIR-compliant data repositories that ensure the long-term preservation of humanities research data and at the same time offer the following benefits on its platform:
We keep your database alive, meaning that your data remain editable, visible, directly accessible and searchable within our web application in the long term.
1. Direct accessibility
2. Persistent identifier
Each object within your database receives its own permanent identifier, which enables precise citation in publications.
3. Generic virtual research environment
We offer you a generic virtual research environment that you can use during the lifetime of your project. This means that there’s no need to re-model, clean and import the data at the end!