As of December 2007, the European Commission has invited the partners of thePreparing DARIAH – the Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanitiesproject to Grant Agreement negotiations. A new, improved version of the programme of work has been prepared, taking into account evaluators’ comments, and, pending the outcome of the negotiation stage, the project is expected to start within the next few weeks.

This long-awaited development is poised to boost the efforts by the Preparing DARIAH multinational team of European research organisations and information centres to pave the way for the construction of a state-of-the-art digital infrastructure serving the needs of the arts, humanities and cultural heritage communities.