The Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities (ACDH) profiles, strengthens, and brings together two central research areas of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW):

Firstly, the institute promotes research in the humanities through the targeted use of digital methods and develops innovative technologies for the humanities. Building on the methodological and theoretical paradigms of digital humanities, the institute bundles relevant expertise, integrates existing resources, and thereby sustainably increases the efficiency of research. The focus of our institute's digitally oriented research and service portfolio includes, in particular, the processes of digitization, modeling of humanities and cultural research data, data processing and analysis, data management and long-term archiving, web development, knowledge transfer, and the provision and publication of processed resources and research results.

Secondly, the institute promotes basic research in the humanities for the development, documentation, analysis, and interpretation of historical and contemporary research objects within the framework of long-term projects and a wide range of other research projects. The institute's digitally oriented research in the humanities and cultural studies, which is also reflected in its structure, focuses in particular on the paradigms of linguistics, literary and print culture studies, and musicology.

The institute acts as a bridge between AI research and basic research in the humanities. Its activities focus primarily on the design and implementation of research projects that use AI methods and tools. With its wide-ranging professional and technical expertise, its high-quality, manually curated data material, and its numerous collaborations, the ACDH is ideally positioned to develop specialized models (further).

The ACDH strives for the broadest possible impact (“knowledge transfer”). Promoting young researchers at the institute and beyond, disseminating relevant expertise within the research community, and interacting with society as a whole are key components of its agenda. In accordance with existing guidelines of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW) and the Digital Humanities Strategy for Austria developed under the Academy's leadership, we are committed to the principles of open science and actively support open access (not only for research results, but also for research data) and the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable).

The ACDH and its four research units including key research topics and activities

The institute was founded in close cooperation with the then Federal Ministry for Science, Research and Economy (BMWFW), by the presidium of the Austrian Academy of Sciences under Anton Zeilinger and Michael Alram in 2015 under the label Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities (ACDH). As part of a major internal restructuring of the Academy, a number of larger and long-term projects and research groups or departments were integrated into the institute at the beginning of 2020 in order to exploit synergies at the interface between digital innovation and “classical” long-term approaches in the humanities. After a temporary extension of the institute's name (2020-2024: Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage (ACDH-CH), the institute has reverted to its original name “ACDH” since the beginning of 2025.