About us

CDDA’s main activities The Centre for Data Digitisation and Analysis is one of the leading Digital Humanities units within the UK and Ireland. Founded in 1999, CDDA has consistently pioneered linkages between information technologies and humanities research. Founded before the Internet became mainstream, the unit was amongst the first of its kind, and, due to its innovation and dynamism, has grown in skills and resource since then.

As the technical and professional landscapes of the humanities and social sciences have shifted over the past 25 years, so too have the expertise and objectives of the Centre.

CDDA now has five key aims.

• First, to continue to be a leading, not-for-profit digitisation organisation.
• Second, to develop large and complex digital resources for the benefit of researchers, academics and the wider community.
• Third, to continue to pioneer the development of new methodologies which can adequately manage and interrogate e-resources in novel ways resulting in new understandings and scholarship.
• Fourth, to develop scholarly outputs such as traditional monographs and journal articles, digital resources and community information systems based on the e-resources the Centre has developed.
• Finally, engage with communities and individuals to develop a greater understanding of our Shared Heritage in new and innovative ways.

With bespoke accommodation within the School of Natural and Built Environment, a skilled and experienced team, some of whom have worked with the Centre since its creation, and over £250,000 of specialised digitisation equipment, CDDA is optimally placed to deliver results both locally and globally. It has attracted more than 100 research grants and contracts, offering digital infrastructure design, advanced analytic tools, a comprehensive digitisation service and has an outstanding record of accomplishment in project management and the successful completion of research.

The latest research themes involve complex visualisation of 3D artefacts and work on Big Data, projects concerning both Augmented and Virtual Reality.

From its inception, the Centre was at the cutting edge of digital humanities where it remains some 25-years later.