The CENDARI (Collaborative European Digital Archive Infrastructure) project, in collaboration with the COST Action: IS 1005, ‘Medioevo Europeo: Medieval Studies and Technological Resources’, will host the first of three annual CENDARI Summer Schools in Florence, Italy from the 22nd to the 26th July 2013. The Summer School, entitled Historical Sources & Transnational Approaches to European History, will invite participants to address specifically how CENDARI aims to resolve the difficulties of historical research through the application of digital technologies and methods. For more information and to apply before the 15th April 2013, please visit http://www.cendari.eu/news-events/summer-school-2013/.

Sessions will apply the concept of ‘transnational moments’ to examine ways in which historical research is complicated by the nature of material records of the past. The Summer School will provide a context for the various collections-level challenges to transnational history, such as how to identify sources that have become ‘hidden’ or lost through accidents of history. Researchers will examine the linguistic, quantitative and methodological challenges facing them today.

The five-day programme, which is currently being finalised, will be a combination of expert speakers, hands-on sessions and collaborative design workshops. All attendees at the Summer School will be invited to present their own research questions and will learn about the digital methods and tools that can be applied. Participants will present their own work and receive feedback from peers; attend seminars by leading authorities in transnational modern and medieval European history, as well as in Digital Humanities; deepen their understanding of the impact of the material record on the practice of history; gain familiarity with powerful new tools in research-oriented information technology.

Applications are invited from historians and collections experts working within the CENDARI case study areas of the First World War and Medieval European Culture, as well as researchers working in the digital humanities who wish to sharpen their understanding of these vital research questions. A number of bursaries, varying in value, funded by the CENDARI project and by the COST Action: IS1005, are available for participants.

For more information on the CENDARI project, financed by the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme for Research (FP7), please visit www.cendari.eu.

For more information on the COST Action IS 1005, please visit http://www.medioevoeuropeo.eu.