International Conference
Data ethics for historical research in a digital era
Mainz,10-12 November 2025
International Conference
Mainz,10-12 November 2025
The use of data, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data science techniques are becoming increasingly pervasive in daily life and research activities, attracting many scholars to adopt them in historically oriented research with promising results. However, neither data nor computational techniques are neutral tools. Historical archives and datasets are themselves the products of selective curation reflecting underlying biases and power dynamics of the context of their creation and collection as well as inequities in access, infrastructure, and perspective. The datafication of historical sources risks to amplify these issues, introducing further challenges related to taxonomy, categorization, and conceptualization.
This may lead, if not countered, to the standardisation of diverse historical experiences into rigid categories, further entrenching existing biases as well as the under-representation of marginalized genders, cultures, social groups and identities, thus erasing pluralities in historical narratives. Since archives and data repositories in Europe often originated within imperial or colonial frameworks, shaping both the content and the perspective of the historical records they contain, these challenges are especially prevalent within European historical research and demand specific attention and ethical responsibilities.
Ethical concerns arise at every stage of the data lifecycle, from collection to dissemination, and it is necessary to consider them carefully in order to guarantee the fair, equal and non-discriminatory treatment of sensitive data. These challenges create the need for a critical reflection on the ethical implications of the handling of data and technologies in historical research and for actionable solutions.
While data ethics, ethical AI, and critiques of data colonialism practices are widely discussed within the data and computer science communities, historical researchers have engaged with these issues more sparingly. A cross-disciplinary dialogue, focused on the unique challenges and needs within historical research, is therefore essential. In particular, there is an urgent need for collaborative efforts to define, seek, and implement shared ethical guidelines and solutions.
This conference seeks to examine the ethical dimensions of data usage within historical research, fostering discussions among scholars that provide practical tools and strategies to navigate these challenges. Thus, the objectives of the conference are:
To allow a worldwide participation, the language of the conference will be English. The conference will be an hybrid event, although the physical attendance of presenters will be preferred.
The conference invites to cover a range of themes and topics related to data ethics, unequal access to digital infrastructures in historical research, and representations of power, in the broad sense of every kind of historically-oriented disciplines (e.g., history of science, archaeology, history of art). We therefore invite researchers to submit papers on, but not limited to, the following topics, as applied in historical research:
To foster the sharing of solutions and good practices, contributions that propose a concrete solution for the ethical issues encountered during the research are particularly encouraged. In order to encourage cross-domain dissemination of common reflections and strategies, we welcome contributions from scholars in History and historically-orientated disciplines, computer sciences and digital humanities as well as from practitioners in GLAM institutions.
We invite researchers at all career levels to submit proposals, written in English, on, but not limited to, the above topics, in the form of abstracts. Two types of submissions are welcomed:
The deadline for submissions is the 19 January 2025, 23:59 CET.
To encourage global participation, we aim to provide travel funding to support the selected speakers. However, we can only apply for travel funding once we have a clear understanding of the expected conference attendance and speaker demographics. Therefore, we ask applicants to indicate in their submission if they would like to apply for travel funding. We will make every effort to secure this support.
Deadline for submissions: 19th January 2025, 23:59 CET
Notification of acceptance: 15th February 2025
Conference subscription period: TBD
Conference dates: 10th-12th November 2025
The conference will be held at the Academy of Sciences and Literature Mainz.
Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Geschwister-Scholl-Straße 2, D-55131 Mainz
Click here for further directions.
The conference proceedings will be published as an open-access edited volume. Authors of selected presentations will be invited to submit a full paper (maximum 45,000 characters incl. spaces, including footnotes but excluding the bibliography) within three months after the conference. Submitted papers will undergo a peer-review and editorial process to ensure high-quality contributions. Additional details regarding publication and formatting guidelines will be provided to authors following the conference.
Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions you might have at data-ethics@sciencesconf.org
