CLARIAH Fellowship Call 2022

The CLARIAH infrastructure consists of a wide variety of tools, services and datasets. In order to further improve the infrastructure and encourage its use CLARIAH opens the Fellowship Call 2022.

Fresco depicting the School of Aristotle by Gustav Adolph Spangenberg, ca 1883-1888
Fresco depicting the School of Aristotle by Gustav Adolph Spangenberg, ca 1883-1888

The CLARIAH-PLUS project develops the Dutch research infrastructure for the humanities, as part of the European CLARIN and DARIAH research infrastructures. The CLARIAH infrastructure consists of a wide variety of tools, services and datasets: generic infrastructure services (a.o. login, workspace), structured data, textual and audio-visual collections, and software applications and services that can be applied to these collections (a.o. search, analysis, annotation, enrichment, conversion, and visualization). CLARIAH-PLUS encompasses a wide range of humanities disciplines, including linguistics, social economic history, media studies, literary studies, religious studies, philosophy and cultural history.

In order to further improve the infrastructure, the CLARIAH Board wants to encourage the use of the infrastructure and to collect requirements based on actual use in research and teaching. To that end, CLARIAH opens a fellowship call. Two kinds of fellowship are distinguished: Research Fellowships and Teaching Fellowships.

Research Fellowship

In a Research Fellowship, a researcher (the CLARIAH Research Fellow) carries out a small research project based on an explicitly formulated research question by using data and/or software that are already part of the CLARIAH infrastructure. The research fellowship results in:

  1. a research article manuscript about this research submitted for publication
  2. a public presentation on a conference or workshop
  3. a list of requirements (a.o. user needs, wishist, bugs)
  4. a web text (e.g. a blog post, a data story, a tutorial) for the CLARIAH portal explaining the used method and approach in a lucid manner to a specific user group.

Teaching Fellowship

In a Teaching Fellowship, a lecturer at a Dutch university (the CLARIAH Teaching Fellow) uses data and/or software that are part of the CLARIAH infrastructure in a BA, MA or RMA course for an explicitly identified category of students (e.g. defined in terms of presupposed background knowledge). The teaching fellowship results in:

  1. educational material (see below for explanation) for the CLARIAH portal
  2. a video lecture for the CLARIAH Portal,
  3. a list of requirements (a.o. user needs, wishlist, bugs) and
  4. a blogpost for the CLARIAH portal on the classroom experience. The educational material consists of one or more web pages that explain in detail and with illustrations how and in which circumstances a particular feature of a tool can be used, and can be accompanied by additional materials (exercises, exercise data, relevant documents, etc.). Some examples can be found on the Mediasuite Subject Tutorials Page.

How do I apply?

You can apply by submitting a proposal in accordance with the research fellow proposal template or the teaching fellow proposal template. The proposal must be written in English. The deadline for application and other important dates can be found in the section Important Dates.

Who can apply?

Every person who is employed by an organization that is eligible for funding by NWO can apply.

What and where are the CLARIAH tools, services and datasets?

The proposals should be executed with tools, services and datasets available in the CLARIAH infrastructure. A list of the CLARIAH tools, services and datasets, and a short description and a contact person for each of these is available via the CLARIAH Fellowship Call Data and Tools Overview. It is strongly advised to consult with these contact persons to assess the current state of the data/software and its suitability for the research question or the teaching purposes at hand.

Additional information for proposals aiming to use the Media Suite can be found here.

Please note that most datasets, especially the cultural heritage collections, are in Dutch. Many of the tools and services are also suited for Dutch only. The language of the datasets is indicated in the list. Applications working with other languages than Dutch are of course highly welcome.

What can be applied for?

You can apply for:

  • Funding for maximally 2 person months of work, in accordance with the standard NWO/VSNU rules and applicable tariffs (see here and here)
  • Money for small material costs, e.g. for costs for attending a conference or workshop, video or text editing, light programming etc. (Max 2000 euro).

What in-kind contribution is expected?

You are expected to bring in 1 person month of effort as in kind into the project.

How much budget is available for this call?

The total budget for this call is €200K.

When does the fellowship start?

The fellowship starts as soon as possible after approval of the project but no later than November 1, 2022.

How long does a fellowship last?

A fellowship typically lasts 6 months, but in special circumstances a longer period up to maximally 12 months may be allowed upon request.

What are the evaluation criteria for the fellowship proposals?

The major criteria:

  • Does the proposal aim to achieve what is requested here?
  • Have the goals of the project been defined clearly
  • (Generalisability) Can it be expected that this project leads to requirements that are also useful for other research questions and teaching purposes that the data and /or software are appropriate for?
  • Are the required deliverables clearly specified and is there a concrete plan for realising them.
  • Has the CLARIAH contact person been consulted on the data/software to be used and does the proposal report on this consultation?

For research fellowships:

  • Has the research question been formulated explicitly?
  • Are the suggested data and /or software suited for addressing the research question?
  • Have suitable publication channels (journals, conferences) been explicitly identified in the proposal?
  • (Feasibility) Is the research question small enough in scope to be carried out in 3 person months and a lead time of 6 months, and large enough to expect a serious test of the CLARIAH infrastructure?

For teaching fellowships:

  • (User-orientation) Has a clear category of students and/or colleagues been identified for the course and the teaching material?
  • (Feasibility) Is the educational project small enough in scope to be carried out in 3 person months and a lead time of 6 months, and large enough to expect a serious test of the CLARIAH infrastructure?

Formal compliance:

  • Conformance to the prescribed format and proposal template
  • Submission before the set deadline, using the means described
  • Conformance to the prescribed language of the proposal

The CLARIAH Board also takes the distribution of the proposals over the various data and tools into consideration, so that as many parts of the CLARIAH infrastructure play a role in these fellowships.

Who can I approach if I have a question about this call?

Send any questions via e-mail: clariah@huygens.knaw.nl

Will there be future CLARIAH calls for fellowships?

This call is the last CLARIAH Fellowship call issued by the CLARIAH-PLUS project.

How do I apply?

You can apply by writing a fellowship proposal using one of the fellowship proposal templates, and by submitting your proposal via Easychair before the set submission deadline.

Important dates

February 2022

Call Published

Monday May 9, 2022, 13:00hrs CET

Submission Deadline

Friday June 10, 2022

Notification of Acceptance

As of August 2022

Fellowship Start date

Typically 6 months and exceptionally up to 12 months after the start date

Fellowship End Date