Improving cultural heritage accessibility with AI gets major funding
The HAICu project of a national consortium of universities, libraries, citizens and partners from the cultural sector receives funding from the NWO as part of the National Science Agenda. The project focuses on using artificial intelligence to improve the accessibility of cultural heritage to citizens. Professor of AI Eric Postma and his colleagues from the Department of Cognitive Science & Artificial Intelligence at the Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences are participating in HAICu with two PhD students and two postdoctoral researchers. The project will receive a total amount of 10.3 million euros.
HAICu stands for: Digital Humanities - Artificial Intelligence - Cultural Heritage. The goal of the project is to connect and unlock large-scale information available in various heritage collections, such as museums, libraries and archives. It sometimes is difficult for a wide audience (citizens, journalists) to find the necessary information in the large amounts of digital data available in (cultural) institutions, which are also heterogeneous in nature. The development of accessible systems for efficient information processing can help them move forward. To this end, new AI techniques are being designed that will make textual and audio-visual information more accessible. This will allow, for example, better mapping of unique archaeological finds and automatic analysis and classification of news items. The project will run for six years.
National Science Agenda
The National Science Agenda (NWA) came about through an innovative process with input from citizens and scientists. Citizens themselves indicated what they felt scientists could contribute to society. The HAICu project was funded by NWO-ORC. ORC stands for Research on Routes by Consortia (ORC).
For more information, contact science editor Tineke Bennema, tel. 013 4668998 or e-mail: persvoorlichters@tilburguniversity.edu.
See also the NWA-ORC page.