NFDI4Memory is one of several consortia within Germany that will jointly manage the creation of a long-term and sustainable research data infrastructure (Nationale Forschungsdateninfrastruktur, or “NFDI”) for the digital age. It brings together partners united by a common set of interests, needs, and aims related to the distinct challenges faced by those disciplines that use historical methods or that rely on data requiring historical contextualization.
In November 2022, 4Memory's funding application was accepted by Germany's Joint Science Conference! From March 2023, 4Memory will become one of the 27 NFDI consortia approved across the three annual application rounds. The consortium's funding will begin in March 2023.
The scope of the consortium includes not only the field of history as such but also other disciplines that make use of historical data as part of their methodologies, such as economics, social science, geography, and area studies. The consortium aims to ensure the quality of historical research data, thereby safeguarding the critical role of the humanities in complex, rapidly changing societies.
Determining how the long-standing traditions of source criticism – a speciality of the historically engaged disciplines – can be applied to digital data is a principal goal of 4Memory.
Organizationally, 4Memory aims to establish systematic, sustainable links among three main categories of the producers and users of historical data: historical researchers, memory institutions (archives, libraries, museums, and collections) and information infrastructures.