The Cultural Studies page provides information on research data relating to tangible and intangible cultural heritage from the fields of architecture, art, music, theatre, film and media studies, as well as research data from cultural anthropology. These disciplines are characterised by a high degree of diversity in their research data and methods.

In cultural studies, research data is generated by collecting, recording, surveying, cataloguing and analysing sources and data. This includes both digital and digitised datasets that represent tangible and intangible cultural heritage, involving also data that catalogues the collections of libraries, archives, museums and heritage conservation agencies. This results in a wide variety of different media types, such as film, video, audio material, musical notation, book and art prints, digitised works of visual art, manuscripts, interviews, photographs, object files, software, 3D models and many more. This broad spectrum encompasses not only the curated collections of cultural institutions, but also data from empirical and ethnographic cultural studies. In these fields, data is predominantly collected with qualitative methods (ethnographic fieldwork methods, individual and group interviews, historical sources, etc.).

Cultural studies works with highly heterogeneous material and metadata that vary significantly from discipline to discipline. The digital methods used in this context involve hybrid (i. e. both analogue and digital) software and technical environments that are not integrated with one another, which considerably complicates the effective management, archiving and reuse of the resulting research data.

The NFDI4Culture consortium is the key point of contact for all aspects of research data management (RDM) in cultural studies. If you work in cultural anthropology and ethnographic cultural studies in particular, it is advisable to contact the FID for Social and Cultural Anthropology. Beyond that, the HERMES Data Competence Centre (German only) offers support for initial, further and continuing education in the field of cultural studies research and teaching, as well as for cultural heritage institutions (GLAM: Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums). The HERMES Expertbase (German only) allows users to search directly for contact persons on specific topics and methods. In the area of university collections, the SODa data competence centre (German only) offers support related to the expansion of data skills.

In the following, we present a range of services and resources in the field of research data management related to cultural studies. Is there a service you are missing? Do you feel that certain connections are not quite accurately represented, or do you have any questions? We look forward to hearing from you by email.

Due to the previously mentioned diversity of methods in contemporary cultural studies research, it is not possible here to address every working practice and its specific data types individually. Depending on the method, resources from related disciplines may be utilised. Further information can be found in our RDM by Discipline section.

To date, the DFG has not published any discipline-specific recommendations related to cultural studies as a whole; however, there is a guide for social and cultural anthropology (German only). Which recommendations and standards apply depends on the subfield’s approach to handling the relevant type of material and the nature of the data to be generated. One example is the DFG’s Practical Guidelines on Digitisation (as updated in 2022) – a long-recognised and tried-and-tested set of good practice recommendations related to quality assurance which makes use of standards in the context of digitisation projects. Data producers should, as a matter of principle, explore standards that match the research question, even if these are not yet widely adopted, if these standards offer significant potential for the data’s interoperability and reusability.

The NFDI4Culture guide to FAIR management of cultural studies research data provides detailed guidance on the standards that can be used to make cultural studies metadata FAIR.

The NFDI4Culture consortium offers consultations on all aspects of research data management, from digitisation to publication, via the NFDI4Culture Helpdesk. The Culture Kickstarter is a suitable tool when it comes to supporting new projects through Letters of Intent and consultancy on funding opportunities. Beyond that, the SODa Data Competence Centre also offers a helpdesk (website in German only). In the Expertbase (German only) of the HERMES data competence centre, interested parties can search for individuals with expertise relevant to their research questions.

The NFDI4Culture Knowledge Base contains guidelines and recommendations on the various phases of the data lifecycle. The NFDI4Culture Registry, in turn, provides an overview and detailed information on suitable software and data services in the field of cultural studies. The SODa data competence centre also offers a Knowledge Base (German only) which contains information relating to academic collections and object data.

Furthermore, NFDI4Culture Barcamps and NFDI4Culture Hackathons are ideal for keeping up to date with the latest developments and for finding like-minded people for new initiatives.

The NFDI4Culture RDMO instance offers researchers the opportunity to create and maintain data management plans for their research. Furthermore, two catalogues have been developed within NFDI4Culture to help museums and collections select the most suitable software for managing their collections. These templates can also be integrated into other RDMO instances.

When creating a data model for the objects in their research project, researchers should use the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CIDOC-CRM) as a guide. This ISO standard forms the basis for data interoperability in the sector of cultural heritage. More specifically, it is essential to mention the object ontology developed within the framework of NFDI4Objects and based on CIDOC-CRM for modelling an object’s history.

With the CIDOC-CRM framework, research data can be recorded, described and linked in a structured manner. The WissKI research environment, for example, can be used to practically implement such semantic data models. WissKI enables the model-based collection, management and presentation of complex cultural studies datasets and, in particular, supports researchers working with ontologies such as CIDOC-CRM. Furthermore, the SODa Semantic Coworking Space (SCS) is being developed for collaborative semantic modelling and data processing, offering researchers a shared working environment for linked-data-based research data.

Furthermore, there are various tools that can be used to analyse and process cultural studies-related data. Workflow-based analyses can, for example, be carried out with Galaxy, which is increasingly being used in the field of digital humanities. Furthermore, research infrastructures such as DARIAH-DE and CLARIN offer comprehensive services and tools for the processing, analysis and reuse of humanities data (see the section Storage and Computing).

Moreover, the semantic linking of research data also plays a central role in research data management. The Culture Knowledge Graph aims to establish a connection between all research data from the NFDI4Culture subject areas, thereby enabling new forms of exploration and reuse. For specific media types, specialised tools are available, such as Semantic Kompakkt for viewing and enriching 3D models and visual media in a Linked Open Data environment.

To manage and publish semantic data, platforms such as Wikibase, which is provided by the Wikibase4Research initiative, can be used. They enable the structured storage, visualisation and sharing of Linked Open Data in research projects. Beyond that, the ANTELOPE service is available for enriching data content, it provides offerings related to terminology search, annotation and entity linking.

Finally, the quality and reusability of the data generated can be checked with the NFDI4Culture FAIR Check tool, which helps researchers assess to which extent their data complies with the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable).

Further guidance on their practical implementation can be found in the NFDI4Culture recommendations on file formats, frameworks and reference models (german only), metadata standards (german only), as well as vocabularies, authority data and application ontologies (german only). These handouts provide guidance for the sustainable and interoperable design of cultural studies research data.

HPC Service for Cultural Studies

Germany's Network for National High-Performance Computing (NHR) provides the national infrastructure for High-Performance Computing (HPC). The NHR network pools resources and expertise on university high-performance computing and makes them available free of charge to researchers at German universities. The NHR network provides computing capacity and supports users through consultancy and training on the use of high-performance computing in their respective fields of application. The services cover a wide range of topics and are available nationwide.

As part of the national HPC strategy, each centre has specialised fields and applications. In the field of Digital Humanities, this is NHR-NORD@Göttingen. The GWDG, as a high-performance computing centre, together with the University of Göttingen, is a member of the NHR consortium and offers free access to state-of-the-art HPC resources for researchers at German universities.

Storage options

DARIAH-DE (Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities) provides scholars working in the humanities and cultural studies in Germany with a modular digital infrastructure. For”hot data”, DARIAH-DE offers an environment in which data can be systematically organised, documented and prepared for collaborative use as early as in the project phase.

At the European level, CLARIN (Common Language Resources and Technology Infrastructure) provides a distributed research infrastructure for digital language and text resources. CLARIN is organised as a European consortium and connects certified data and service centres across numerous member states. Researchers can store, process and analyse language- and text-based data there. The infrastructure supports both active use within the project context and the long-term preservation of the data.

Through RADAR4Culture, NFDI4Culture provides a free service for publishing and preserving cultural studies research data in accordance with the FAIR principles. In addition, a curated list of repositories provides an overview of subject-specific and generic repositories for the communities covered by NFDI4Culture.

The Computational Publishing Service enables the publication of Linked Data directly from Wikibase4Research in multiple formats (web, print or hybrid) via Jupyter Notebooks, Quarto and GitLab/GitHub. This allows researchers to publish articles, monographs and websites that draw on code and data, are based on data analyses and utilise visualisations.

The NFDI4Culture Culture Data Search enables users to discover and explore research data listed in the Culture Knowledge Graph. Research data can also be searched for in the RADAR4Culture repository, at the Qualiservice Research Data Centre (Cultural Anthropology) and in the repositories from the list curated by NFDI4Culture. Furthermore, the German National Library offers its bibliographic data and several digital collections freely via DNBLab. The Austrian National Library also offers selected digital holdings (images, full texts or metadata) via ÖNB Labs. The catalogues and databases of the Swiss National Library (NB) can also be consulted; a selection of the data can be downloaded via opendata.swiss.

In general, the re3data directory provides an overview of repositories as well as a search function with a wide range of search options, e.g.:

• Art History, Music, Theatre and Media Studies
• Social and Cultural Anthropology, Non-European Cultures, Jewish Studies and Religious Studies

Legal and ethical issues may arise when collecting, processing and publishing data relating to tangible and intangible cultural heritage. These include, among other things, aspects of copyright and rights of personality, the handling of objects from contexts of injustice, and the ethical challenges associated with web and AI scraping.

The NFDI4Culture Helpdesk provides answers to questions regarding copyright and the licensing of research data.

The SODa Data Competence Centre offers expertise on legal and ethical issues (German only) arising from the digitisation of university collections. Also worth noting in the context of collections are the German Museum Association’s guidelines on handling collection items from colonial contexts and guidelines on handling human remains in museums and collections.

In ethnographic research, data is regarded as the result of a dialogical process in which researchers and participants jointly generate the content (co-production). This approach makes it essential to engage in an in-depth examination of issues relating to data protection, property rights and the conditions under which results may possibly be shared with third parties. However, as research contexts are highly diverse, it is not possible to establish universally applicable standards; instead, it requires constant, context-dependent reflection on how the data is handled. In this context, the participants’ consent is understood not as a one-off, formal act, but as a dynamic, ongoing social process. It is therefore necessary to develop more flexible or multi-stage models of consent that are negotiated throughout the entire duration of the research.

The Qualiservice Research Data Centre provides various templates for consent to participation in research projects, for consent to archiving or for research-related reuse. The checklist for drafting consent forms and suggested wording (German only) – including in plain language (German only) – from the German Network of Educational Research Data may also be helpful. However, questionnaires and checklists are not sufficient to conclusively resolve ethical issues. Ultimately, the responsibility lies with the researcher, who can only negotiate the appropriateness of safeguards and the weighing up of potential risks with the stakeholders in the field.

• NFDI4Culture Educational Resource Finder: general and subject-specific training and further education programmes aimed at the NFDI4Culture communities
• The HERMES resourcebase (German only) is a directory of Open Educational Resources in the field of digital humanities and cultural studies
• Data Carpentries lesson: Sarkar Farshi, G. (2 March 2026). Introduction to Data Analysis Basics with Python for the Humanities. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18837669.
• Data Carpentries lesson: Stanicka-Brzezicka, K., & Berg, C. (6 May 2025). Data and Metadata in the Humanities: Structures, Schemas, and Standards. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15349835.
• Data Carpentries lesson: Zwick, R., & Tolksdorf, J. (22 July 2025). Relational Databases with NocoDB in the humanities. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16318582.

Materials from NFDI4Culture, such as presentations and position papers, can be found in the NFDI4Culture Zenodo community.

Handout: Kulturwissenschaftliche Forschungsdaten – eine Einführung.
Authors: Martin Albrecht-Hohmeier, Katharina Bergmann, Christoph Eggersglüß, Andrea Polywka, Alexander Stark
Year of publication: 2022
Link to document

Handout: Guideline for a FAIR Management of Cultural Research Data
Author: Angela Kailus
Year of publication: 2023
Link to document

Handout: Basics of digital preservation. A guideline to digital preservation from the perspective of the NFDI4Culture community
Authors: Jörg Heseler, Alexandra Büttner, Matthias Arnold
Year of publication: 2024
Link to document

Paper: Forschungsdatenmanagement in der ethnografischen Forschung: Eine praktische Einführung
Authors: Sabine Imeri, Martina Klausner, Michaela Rizzolli
Year of publication: 2023
Link to document