Green light for EHRI-3

The European Commission announced that EHRI (European Holocaust Research Infrastructure) will receive new funding from the Research and Innovation Programme Horizon2020 to sustain and further develop its main resources and services.

EHRI is currently already in the process of transforming from a project into a permanent body for international Holocaust research, through the ‘preparatory phase funding’ . With this new funding for EHRI-3, EHRI can maintain and expand its services and resources developed in the first two phases, such as the fellowships, training activities and the EHRI Portal. Over the next 4 years, EHRI will therefore follow two paths: transforming into a permanent infrastructure and continuing as a long-standing, active project.

New and improved services

Having both sources of funding is especially good news for our user community as it means that they can keep on using EHRI’s new and improved services, while behind the scenes, the foundations for a durable organisation are being built .

The State Archives/CegeSoma were among the founders of the EHRI project and have been involved, together with Kazerne Dossin, both in the further development of services and resources during the third project phase and in the development of the permanent organisation. Within EHRI-3, the State Archives/CegeSoma contributes to different Work Packages: impact, innovation and sustainability (more specifically the legal aspects such as protection of privacy); further development of local research infrastructures and new research and archiving approaches.

Hidden sources

While the sources of most major Holocaust institutions are already integrated into the EHRI Portal, many valuable sources held by small local archives and micro-archives are currently hardly accessible - or are even inaccessible – to research communities. EHRI will develop protocols and tools in order to make these hidden sources accessible for Holocaust research.

New approaches, programmes and activities

In this third phase, EHRI will further enable new transnational and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of the Holocaust by developing innovative layers that connect thematically related but physically dispersed collections. It will greatly enhance its access provisions, and integrate new communities into its network: local research- and archive networks, universities, researchers working in closely related fields.

Later this year, EHRI will announce new programmes for its fellowships and training activities. The fellowships will enable foreign experts to carry out research in the collections of the State Archives/CegeSoma that are directly linked to international Holocaust research. A new interactive Online Course in Holocaust Studies and a MOOC (massive open online course) can be expected. Thanks to MOOC, a larger public can be reached.

Strengthening the community

In the next four years, EHRI will manage to expand and strengthen its community of partners, experts, scholars, archivists, digital humanists and others. New partners to the consortium will be the Center for Urban History of East Central Europe in Lviv, Ukraine, and the University of Thessaloniki.