Digital Heritage
The digital heritage research activities aim to develop information technologies for the humanities and cultural studies. The software solutions are used in a wide range of applications in the digital humanities. These include, for instance, virtual reconstructions of built heritage as well as federation platforms for multimedia research data.
A distinctive feature of research at ZIAI is the development of computational approaches for both text-based and non-textual, material forms of cultural heritage, as well as the study of their interrelation.
Research problems originate, for example, in computational linguistics, historical geography and built heritage conservation. The contributions from computer science make particular use of methods from semantic information processing and information retrieval for these application scenarios.
Selected Research Projects
Participating Disciplines and Researchers
- Digital Monument Technology: Prof. Dr. Mona Hess, Dr.-Ing. Maria Chizhova
- English Linguistics: Prof. Dr. Manfred Krug, Prof. Dr. Julia Schlüter, Prof. Dr. Valentin Werner
- Jewish Studies: Prof. Dr. Susanne Talabardon
- AI System Engineering: Prof. Dr. Christoph Benzmüller, Dr. David Fuenmayor, Prof. Dr. Andrea Vestrucci
- Computing in the Cultural Sciences: Prof. Dr. Christoph Schlieder
- Media Informatics: Prof. Dr. Andreas Henrich, Tobias Gradl
- Slavic Linguistics: Prof. Dr. Sebastian Kempgen
- Historical Geography: Prof. Dr. Andreas Dix
- Arabic Studies: Dr. Noran Amin
- Digital History: Prof. Dr. Werner Scheltjens
- German Medieval Studies: Prof. Dr. Gesine Mierke
- Auxiliary Sciences of History: Prof. Dr. Christof Rolker
- Philosophy: Prof. Dr. Silvia Jonas
- Philosophy II: Prof. Dr. Christian Illies, Dr. Tomoki Sakata
- IT Service / Research Support: Dr. Klaus Stein
Further Current Projects (Selection)
- Unlocking Upcycled Medieval Data: North Sea Networks, People, and Commodities in the London Customs Accounts 1380–1560 (DFG–AHRC, 2025–2027; Scheltjens, with the Institute of Historical Research, London)
- UrbanMetaMapping – War damage maps and city maps as sources, machine learning on historical maps (BMBF; Enss, Stein)
- HeriTwinneD – Digital twins for existing buildings (Smart City Research Lab / Graduate School; Hess)
- Digital Twins of Intellectual Figures Influencing the Arab Region and Germany: Perspectives on Cultural and Historical Education through AI (Arab-German Young Academy / Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; Amin)
- Story Pharm – Storytelling as Pharmakon in Premodernity and Beyond and Compendium Sonicum (Mierke)
- Young German Learner English: Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency (DFG, 2023–2026; Werner)

