New cyberinfrastructure for interdisciplinary research

By connecting and integrating a range of international research databases, DataARC will produce online tools and infrastructure to enable ground-breaking interdisciplinary research on human ecodynamics in the North Atlantic context. Umeå University's part in the project funded by the National Science Foundation will be led by the Environmental Archaeology Lab (MAL) and Humlab.

Research on the interactions between Arctic environments and people requires linking data from over thousands of square km, hundreds of years, and multiple disciplines, from climatology and chemistry to archaeology and the Humanities.

"Datasets often exist to help address these questions, but they are difficult to find, make interoperable, analyse and visualise. Investing in large-scale cyberinfrastructure allows collaborators and data to be connected, from the Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, and the Humanities," says Phil Buckland, associate professor at the Environmental Archaeology Lab at Umeå University.

"This creates opportunities for a more holistic approach to understanding the rapid social and environmental changes that occurred in the past."

The systems development skills of The Strategic Environmental Archaeology Database, SEAD and Humlab, both units at the Faculty of Arts, will contribute to fulfilling the project's ambitious goals. Among other things, the project will create a system which will allow other systems to 'talk' to each other, and thus allow for easier communication and data synthesis between researchers with related questions.

In addition to Phil Buckland, doctoral student Gísli Pálsson, system developer Roger Mähler (Humlab) and system developer Erik J Eriksson (ITS) at Umeå University will also take part in the project.

Read more about the Strategic Environmental Archaeology Database: sead.se/

Provided by Umea University