mainzed – Mainz Center for Digitality in the Humanities and Cultural Studies

Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) is a founding member of the Mainz Center for Digitality in the Humanities and Cultural Studies (Mainzer Zentrum für Digitalität in den Geistes- und Kulturwissenschaften), called 'mainzed' in short. This joint project of six academic institutions is designed to promote the use of digital methods in the humanities and cultural studies at Mainz, the objective being to enhance their profile in these disciplines. Partners of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz are the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz (ADW), the Mainz University of Applied Sciences, the Institute of Historical Regional Studies at Mainz University e.V. (IGL), the Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG), and the Roman-Germanic Central Museum Mainz (RGZM).

Mainz University will contribute its decades of experience in different areas of the digital humanities to the collaboration. Its Faculty of Translation Studies, Linguistics, and Cultural Studies in Germersheim is running a number of research projects in the fields of language and translation technology as well as computer linguistics. The researchers are particularly interested the development of language technologies for efficient knowledge management and for the processing of multilingual content. The Music Informatics Research Group at JGU's Institute of Art History and Musicology founded back in 1991 is developing, among other things, techniques for algorithmic composition, digital signal processing, and musical analysis. The Research Unit on Historical Cultural Sciences promotes digital publishing projects such as the edition of the Augsburg Master Builders' ledgers, which is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), and the Friedrich Schlegel Critical Edition as well as musicological databases such as MusMig (HERA project "Music Migration in the Early Modern Age") and MDS (MassDataBase in the DFG research project "The Early Mass in Music History Between Liturgical Function and Art"). There are further research foci, including projects relating to Book and Literary Studies. Moreover, JGU is already collaborating with the Mainz Academy of Sciences and Literature, another partner in mainzed, for example in the academy's project on "Ancient Egyptian Cursive Script: Digital Paleography and Systematic Analysis of Hieratic and Cursive Hieroglyphics" as well as in the preparation of a digital catalog of the complete works of Christoph Willibald Gluck.

The purpose of mainzed is to establish a central pool of digital skills available in Mainz, to encourage a discussion of digitalization in terms of techniques for dealing with digital materials, and to promote a mindset that will encourage an active engagement with the digital world. In future, archaeologists and historians, computer scientists, music and book scholars as well as researchers from many other fields will work together at mainzed to develop digital research and teaching programs that will transcend disciplinary boundaries. Thus, mainzed will provide the central point of contact with regard to all aspects of digitality in association with research and teaching. Building on the expertise of its partner institutions, mainzed will provide guidance on the identification and implementation of digital components of research in Mainz. Although mainzed will be a locally-based institution, the network thinks in global terms. The actual subjects of the specific research undertakings and collaborative regional projects will provide a link to developments within the international research community. Furthermore, mainzed has committed itself to ensuring the transparent and sustainable management of research data and software developments (OpenAccess, OpenSource, OpenScience).