Tech boost for arts

The Arts and Humanities Research Council has announced funding of just under £1 million for 12 projects to improve the use of computer technology in the arts and humanities, writes Martyn Bull.

"The majority of arts and humanities researchers using computer technology have not progressed beyond word processing, using e-mail and browsing the web", said David Robey, director of the information and communication technology initiative and professor of Italian at Reading University.

"The UK is a world leader in humanities computing... but we need to look outwards, be more strategic and work with other partners," he said.

Over the past five years, half of the AHRC-funded projects have produced digital output - including databases of collected manuscripts and multimedia resources - but to date, the projects have been scattered and uncoordinated.

Richard Beacham, one of the new grant-holders at Warwick University, said:

"We want to bring order to the chaos that exists in the humanities and begin sharing our information more widely."

Mike Pringle, a grant-holder at the Surrey Institute of Art and Design, said: "It might mean new tools for artists, or finding solutions for existing problems.

"One thing we want to do is to get scientists meeting humanities people at conferences to bridge the art-science gap."