Overview

The Academia Sinica Center for Digital Cultures first began as the Research Center for Information Technology Innovation (2007-2013), established to carry out the national Taiwan e-Learning and Digital Archives Program (TELDAP). In February 2013, in order to continue long-term promotion of digital humanities research and digital cultural innovation, it was reorganized into the cross-disciplinary, cross-institute Center for Digital Cultures. Since February 2020, under the directive of Academia Sinica's president, it has carried out the Digital Humanities Research Project. Its primary mission continues to be assisting the digital turn in humanities research.

The main challenges faced by humanities scholars are: (1) Extracting contents from research data, (2) The application of analysis techniques. ASCDC carries out the structured aggregation of texts and images from various historical and societal contexts. In addition, it provides fast and flexible research tools to process large text or image datasets. We enable humanities scholars to ask and answer new types of research questions.

How to develop organic links between research and local society, and to interact on an equal footing with international scholarship, are also challenges that ASCDC is actively engaging with. To accomplish these goals, ASCDC is oriented towards four major areas: "Linked Knowledge Bases for Digital Humanities," "Innovative Cyberinfrastructure and Digital Tools," "Academic Research in the Digital Humanities," and "Outreach Initiatives: Publication and Exhibition."

The core work of ASCDC consists of assisting institutions in establishing “Linked Knowledge Bases for Digital Humanities,” promoting “Academic Research in the Digital Humanities,” building text and image analysis research platforms, developing digital tools and technology, conducting Linked Open Data (LOD) research and practice, creating digital museums, coordinating publication and book fairs, maintaining databases, and strengthening international connections and cooperation.

ASCDC takes academic research as its foundation, integrating different forms of digital cultural heritage, preserving and enriching digital content, improving digital humanities research environments, leading social participation and sharing of digital knowledge, and at the same time engaging in cooperative exchange with the international academic community and raising the visibility and influence of Taiwan's digital culture.

ASCDC Timeline
2013	The Academia Sinica Center for Digital Cultures (ASCDC) was established. Its first Director was Hsieh Kuo-hsing (Research Fellow and Director, Institute of Taiwan History). Its first Deputy Directors were Wang Hsin-min (Research Fellow and Vice Director, Institution of Information Science) and Lin Fu-shih (Research Fellow and Vice Director, Institute of History and Philology).
2016	Lin Fu-Shih became ASCDC Director. Deputy Director posts were filled by Wang Hsin-min, Chang Che-chia (Associate Research Fellow and Director of Archives, Institute of Modern History), and Chen Hsi-yuan (Associate Research Fellow and Director of Archives, Institute of History and Philology)
2020	Chen Hsi-yuan became ASCDC Director. Deputy Director posts were filled by Wang Hsin-min, Chang Che-chia, and Tai Li-chuan (Associate Research Fellow, Institute of History and Philology).