Humanities and Social Sciences Digital Research Infrastructure in Canada
Digital Research Infrastructure (DRI) encompasses the tools, technology, hardware, software, and people who facilitate digital research. Humanities and social sciences (HSS) DRI pertains to these specific disciplines and their unique needs, practices, and outputs. CRKN is actively supporting and contributing to HSS DRI in Canada.
Who is Involved
For several years, key HSS DRI groups have come together to learn from each other, explore best practices, and collaborate on areas of shared priority. This includes the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL), Canadian Research Data Centre Network (CRDCN), CRKN, Érudit, Humanities Data Lab, Implementing New Knowledge Environments (INKE) Partnership, Linked Infrastructure for Networked Cultural Scholarship (LINCS), Public Knowledge Project (PKP) and Scholars Portal.
Landscape Analysis
Digital Research Infrastructure for the HSS in Canada
In 2024, CRKN and Érudit embarked on a collaborative project to survey and map HSS DRI in Canada.
As leaders in Canada’s humanities and social sciences (HSS) digital research infrastructure, we share a common goal: to ensure that the study of human experience—past, present, and future—continues to thrive through strong, sustainable support systems. The HSS disciplines play a vital role in helping society understand and respond meaningfully to rapid technological, cultural, and environmental change. For this work to reach its full potential, research outputs must be as open as possible (while respecting the need for privacy and cultural sensitivity), and supported by long-term, innovative infrastructure that preserves and advances knowledge for generations to come.
People at the Centre
Effective digital research infrastructure is built around people—more than 90,000 HSS researchers and students in Canada, as well as the librarians, technologists, data specialists, and members of the public who use and sustain this work. Our group has collaboratively invested in this space for decades, contributing to regional, national, and international infrastructures that sustain Canada’s research capacity. We have continued to grow and collaborate despite the unique challenges of working within disciplines that often fall outside traditional science-based funding frameworks.
Our Vision
We envision a community-led, coordinated, and sustainable ecosystem for HSS digital research infrastructure—one that is stable, autonomous, and grounded in the distinctive traditions and approaches of the humanities and social sciences.
Building on a Strong Foundation
Canada’s HSS research infrastructure landscape is built on decades of technical innovation, collaboration, and data stewardship. It reflects the deep expertise of our disciplines and their focus on understanding human societies, cultures, and histories. Central to this work is managing information responsibly—ensuring that research data and outputs remain accessible, preserved, and usable over time.
Sustaining this legacy requires ongoing investment and planning. Stable infrastructure is not just a technical issue—it is a commitment to the future of Canadian scholarship and public knowledge. While other disciplines receive consistent, long-term support for their research systems, HSS infrastructure has often been funded sporadically or required to fit models designed for the natural sciences or business-oriented frameworks. We know from our own experience the critical importance of recruiting, developing, and retaining highly-qualified personnel to maintain a supported, functioning system, which requires consistent and reliable investment to sustain this important work in Canada.
Why Community-Led Infrastructure Matters
Researchers, librarians, educators, publishers, and technologists in the HSS know the risks of outsourcing research infrastructure to commercial entities. When critical tools and platforms are privatized, public investment and academic control are diminished. Community-owned and community-led infrastructure ensures that development remains values-driven, reciprocal, transparent, and aligned with the public interest.
Autonomy also allows us to balance stability with adaptability. Standardization is important, but so is flexibility—to support diverse research methods, emerging technologies, multilingual needs, and culturally sensitive approaches. This capacity for evolution is a defining strength of HSS research infrastructure. It reflects our disciplines’ long tradition of critical thinking and innovation—qualities that are essential for guiding the responsible development of technology and data use in Canada.
A Call to Partnership
We are committed to working collaboratively with partners across Canada’s digital research infrastructure ecosystem to strengthen and sustain our shared research capacity. Continued investment in HSS digital research infrastructure will ensure that Canada remains a global leader in understanding the human dimensions of change—social, cultural, environmental, and technological.
We invite governments, funders, and institutional partners to join us in realizing this vision: a future where Canada’s humanities and social sciences are empowered by resilient, community-driven, and forward-looking digital research infrastructure.
Many other organizations and initiatives are operating in the HSS DRI space. For a select list, please see below.
- Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ)
- Borealis
- Canadian Persistent Identifiers Advisory Committee (CPIDAC)
- Canadian Writing Research Collaboratory / Le Collaboratoire scientifique des écrits du Canada (CWRC / CSÉC); transitioning to Collaboratory for Writing and Research on Culture
- Coalition for Canadian Digital Heritage (CCDH)
- Coalition Publica
- Cyberinfrastructure ouverte pour les sciences humaines et sociales (CO.SHS)
- Data Management Plan (DMP) Assistant
- DataCite Canada Consortium
- Digital Research Alliance of Canada / Alliance de recherche numérique du Canada (The Alliance / L’Alliance)
- Federated Research Data Repository / Le Dépôt fédéré de données de recherche (FRDR/DFDR)
- Internet Archive Canada
- Library and Archives Canada / Bibliothèque et Archives Canada (LAC / BAC)
- Linked Editing Academic Framework (LEAF)
- Lunaris
- National Indigenous Knowledge & Language Alliance / Alliance nationale des connaissances et des langues autochtones (NIKLA / ANKLA)
ORCID Canada Consortium (ORCID-CA) - Pressbooks
- Regional Library Associations: British Columbia Electronic Library Network (BC ELN), Council of Atlantic Academic Libraries / Conseil des bibliothèques postsecondaires de l'Atlantique (CAAL / CBPA), Council of Prairie and Pacific University Libraries (COPPUL), Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL), Partenariat des bibliothèques universitaires du Québec (PBUQ)
- Scholaris
- Voyant Tools