Trier University is a middle-sized university with a strong profile in the humanities and social sciences, psychology and environmental sciences situated at the western border of Rhineland-Palatinate (RLP). It is a member of the Université de la Grande Region (UniGR) with close connections to Belgian, French and Luxemburg research institutions and universities. Over the last two decades Trier University’s history department has continuously developed its profile in research-oriented digital history, covering the longue durée from ancient to contemporary history. Trier’s historically oriented research community creates, curates and uses a broad array of different data types (see Appendix and LoC). Two collaborative research centers (SFB 235 and 600) and several data-driven research projects have explored and established innovative digital research tools, research techniques, workflows and research infrastructures, including simulation techniques, network visualisation, topic modelling and time-specific controlled vocabularies. Members of the history faculty are engaged in the development of a data culture in historically oriented disciplines by serving in advisory boards of historical associations (VHD, AG Sozialdaten und Zeitgeschichte, OAH) and as experts on scientific boards of digital data centres and initiatives on national and international levels. Based on its experience in collaborative historical research in longue durée perspectives, Trier University has developed tools and services for collaborative research data management in the humanities. Today, the Virtual Research Environment "FuD" serves the needs of the history community in Germany and beyond. It offers a research infrastructure that combines hermeneutic text analysis, quantitative data analysis and cartographic methods and that is capable of handling and processing a broad range of digital historical sources, including audio-visual, textual, numerical and geographical data. In order to support humanities researchers in developing and implementing IT-based research-projects, UT has established the Service Center eSciences (SeS). By coordinating and implementing UT’s RDM strategy, it is responsible for RDM-consultations and training. It has developed the DIAMANT-Model including an RDM competence profile and a qualification concept to implement and support an RDM service landscape in research institutions. SeS has also developed the virtual data repository VIDA for long-term preservation of different historical data domains. VIDA will become the long-term archiving infrastructure of RLP and SeS will serve as one the coordinators of RLP’s research data management strategy. UT also participates in the NFDI consortium +text and contributes to the cross-cutting topics data rights and data ethics with its Institut für Recht und Digitalisierung (IRDT).
