History
The Centre for e-Research was launched in April 2008 following the demise of the Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS) and the cessation of the Methods Network.
The AHDS Executive was hosted at King’s (located in Information Services & Systems [ISS], now IT and Library Services) from its inception in 1996 until it was wound up in March 2008. Following a feasibility study by Harold Short and Lou Burnard, the AHDS was established as a distributed organisation with six centres: the Executive at King’s, Literature, Languages and Linguistics at Oxford, Archaeology at York, History at Essex, Performing Arts at Glasgow, and Visual Arts at University College for the Creative Arts, Farnham.
Over its twelve year history, the AHDS built up a world class reputation in the management of digital content in the arts and humanities, including standards and guides to best practice for data creation, use and preservation; tools and systems for creating, managing, preserving data, and providing access to data; underpinned by a range of strategies and policies for collections development, appraisal, management and preservation. The AHDS was also an early entrant into exploring and researching e-Science methods and tools for the arts and humanities.
The Methods Network was an AHRC-funded, multi-disciplinary partnership which ran from 1 April 2005 to 31 March 2008 providing a national forum for the exchange and dissemination of expertise in the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for arts and humanities research.
The Centre for e-Research is taking forward the legacy of these two services through an innovative programme of applied research.
CeRch remained part of ISS until the converged service split into IT Services and Library Services in early 2011. The Centre sat within IT Services until January 2012 and is now part of the Department of Digital Humanities in the School of Arts and Humanities.