The European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI) project seeks to transform archival research on the Holocaust. The vision of EHRI is to integrate the data, services and expertise of existing Holocaust infrastructures on an unprecedented scale. It will allow researchers from across the globe transnational and virtual access to the integrated infrastructure, and provide them with innovative digital tools and methods to (collaboratively) explore and analyse Holocaust sources. EHRI will thereby become an indispensable tool for the study of the Holocaust from a pan-European perspective. EHRI is based on an advanced community that has already achieved a significant co-ordination of its efforts, not least thanks to the activities undertaken during EHRI's first phase. The aim of the second phase is to further expand this community. The EHRI consortium includes 22 partners, spread across Europe and beyond. This consortium, as well as a network of regional contact points, enables EHRI to reach those regions where much valuable Holocaust source material is located, but where access has hitherto been problematic, especially in South-Eastern and Eastern Europe. EHRI includes measures to build capacity in such regions, thereby ensuring that institutions and people across Europe can contribute to, and make use of, the EHRI infrastructure. EHRI will continue to serve as a 'best practice' model for other humanities projects, and its innovative approach to data integration, management and retrieval will have impact in the wider cultural and IT industries. Although EHRI is geared towards scholarly communities, open online availability of reliable Holocaust material is important for the larger public, as the Holocaust is deeply rooted in the development of European societies. European support for the study of this most traumatic historical event is essential to achieve a comprehensive approach to the history of the Holocaust as a shared European phenomenon.

The European Holocaust Research Infrastructure’s (EHRI) mission is to overcome widespread dispersal of Holocaust sources. EHRI is an advanced community comprising 23 partners from 17 countries across Europe, Israel and the United States. It is an inter-disciplinary community spanning Holocaust research, archival sciences and the digital humanities. In two previous Integrating Activities, EHRI has integrated an unprecedented amount of information about dispersed Holocaust sources in an online Portal, developed tools to contextualise, analyse and interpret such sources, and set new impulses with regard to inter-disciplinary and trans-national research. EHRI’s past achievements have been recognised, not least by European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) who adopted EHRI on its 2018 Roadmap. The aim of the EHRI-3 project is to move decisively beyond the achieved state-of-the-art. In particular, while EHRI has already integrated the holdings of the major Holocaust RIs, much valuable source material that is held by small local and micro-archives is currently inaccessible to the research communities. EHRI-3 will develop protocols and tools that allow the open up of hidden sources for Holocaust research. EHRI-3 will further enable new trans-national approaches to the study of the Holocaust by developing innovative layers across dispersed sources that connect thematically related, but physically dispersed, collections. It will greatly enhance its access provisions, and integrate new communities – local research and archive networks, universities, researchers working in closely related fields – into its network. Although EHRI is geared towards scholarly communities, the Holocaust is deeply rooted in the development of European societies. EHRI-3 will continue to be a showcase of how a humanities RI can inform societal discourse in areas such as antisemitism, xenophobia, non-discrimination and religious and cultural tolerance.

The vision of the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI) is to secure seamless access to all sources and expertise from across Europe and beyond that are relevant to the study of the Holocaust. It approaches this vision through the development of a pan-European distributed Research Infrastructure that brings together the leading facilities and offers users integrated access to Holocaust resources, expertise and training. In 2018, EHRI was added to the ESFRI Roadmap, and is currently finalising a step-1 application to establish a new European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC), supported by eleven countries. The EHRI-IP project will facilitate EHRI’s implementation phase and ensure a timely start of its operation as an ERIC. The EHRI-IP consortium consists of representatives from the emerging national nodes of the eleven countries that expressed support for establishing EHRI as an ERIC, as well as partners from Ukraine and the United States. This consortium will undertake a set of coordinated activities that will advance EHRI’s maturity and capabilities and remove any remaining roadblocks to its implementation and early operation. The project will achieve three overall objectives: (i) to implement EHRI by finalising the governance, establishing an operation-ready Central Hub and linked National Nodes, and turning existing high-level scientific, user and technological strategies into operational reality; (ii) to grow EHRI by acquiring new potential Member and Observer countries, negotiating cooperation agreements with international and strategic partners, and investigating the scope for a future expansion of EHRI with regards to the scientific domain covered, services offered and user communities served; (iii) to manage and valorise EHRI by coordinating between EHRI-IP and concurrent activities, and developing strategies that ensure that EHRI reaches its full potential with regards to innovation and social, economic and scientific impact.

The Preparatory Phase project of the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI) is an outcome of EHRI’s adoption on the 2018 Roadmap of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI). The EHRI-PP project aims to bring EHRI to the level of financial, legal and technical maturity required for its implementation as a permanent European RI in the domain of Holocaust studies and archives. In particular, the project will ensure the long-term sustainability of EHRI through the drafting of a sound business plan that links EHRI’s scientific case, user and access policy and value proposition to a robust governance structure, legal framework and a financial plan. It will further ensure EHRI’s timely implementation by developing a detailed implementation plan and by negotiating firm financial commitments from national stakeholders. The EHRI-PP project will be carried out by a consortium of 15 partners from 13 countries that have jointly developed EHRI in the context of two EU-funded Integrating Activities since 2010. The consortium includes the major Holocaust RIs in Europe, Israel and the United States. EHRI’s scientific mission is to overcome the enormous fragmentation of Holocaust archives and research. It approaches this mission through the development of a pan-European distributed RI that offers virtual and trans-national access to source material, and promotes the exchange of resources, knowledge and expertise across disciplinary and geographic boundaries. EHRI also plays an important societal role. It ensures that Holocaust commemoration is based on sound scientific research and informed by authoritative archival sources. EHRI thereby contributes to the development of open and non-discriminatory societies across Europe. By consolidating EHRI’s previous achievements and results into a new, sustainable, distributed RI, EHRI-PP will secure Europe’s place at the forefront of Holocaust documentation and research for the long-term.