Page 40


FEATURE | Innovation


Virtual Research Environment

The purpose of this project is to develop a Virtual Research Environment (VRE) to support the increasingly complex range of tasks involved in carrying out research in the Arts & Humanities. The digital tools and resources in the VRE will provide an electronic space where such work can be carried out.

The project will be a partnership between Microsoft Research, the Trinity Long Room Hub, Trinity College Library and Irish software development company, Softedge.


Recording the Past

The Bridge-IT project is concerned with the biographical accounts of older men and women as they refl ect upon their lives and on their experiences of ageing within a changing city environment. The project creates a "living history": breathing life into raw data and primary source material that is voice-centred and creative. This online digital exhibition space represents the outputs from the current phase of the Bridge-IT project creating an interactive online resource of biographical and archival material.

www.outreach.tchpc.tcd.ie/okapi


South Asia Initiative

Across the Humanities and Social Sciences in TCD the connections with South Asia are very old, reaching back to the establishment of the chair of Oriental Languages in 1762. By the mid 19th century not only were classical languages such as Persian, Arabic and Sanskrit being taught at Trinity, but numerous regional languages as well, not to mention courses in Indian law and history. The study of South Asia also became prominent in this period in the curriculum of the Schools of Engineering and Medicine. In the second half of the 19th century, furthermore, over 150 Trinity graduates entered the Indian Civil Service, trained at Trinity’s Indian Civil Service School. While the study of South Asia declined at Trinity in the early 20th century, it currently boasts a wide array of teaching and research relating to the region, as well as growing numbers of students from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Drawing upon Trinity’s historical legacy and inherited resources, the growth of large South Asian communities in Ireland, the expanding commercial links between India and Ireland, and the substantial interest within Ireland in South Asian societies, cultures, politics and history, the goal of the Trinity South Asia Initiative is to make Trinity the centre for South Asian Studies in the Irish Republic. It aims to do so through the development of inter-institutional research and postgraduate links, the promotion of teaching and research relating to South Asia across the Humanities and Social Sciences, and the development of scholarly and cultural outreach events relating to South Asia.

(Photo captioned: Dr Kalam (sixth from left) with members of the Irish Asian Community at TCD)


38 | Trinity Today