Organisation

The IISH is one of the 16 Institutes of the Royal Academy of Arts an Sciences (KNAW). The KNAW is the legal entity that has all our employees on its payroll. The Institute’s general director is appointed by the KNAW’s board for a five-year term (which can optionally be extended by a further term). Each Institute has an Academic Advisory Board appointed by the KNAW, which advises the director of the Institute as well as the KNAW. The Academic Advisory Board of the IISH meets twice per year.

The collections that have been submitted to the IISH are owned by or trusted to an independent foundation, the IISH Foundation. The collection of the IISH is managed by KNAW Institute IISG. The Foundation has a Supervisory Board.

In 2016, the IISH joined forces with the Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands (Huygens ING) and the Meertens Institute to form the KNAW Humanities Cluster (KNAW HuC).

Within the KNAW HuC researchers, technicians, and data and collection specialists work together to develop new digital methods and techniques. The KNAW HuC holds extensive (digital) collections and an advanced digital infrastructure that also serves researchers outside the KNAW HuC.

The HuC has an digital infrastructure department with more than 30 software engineers and systems developers. The HuC Digital Humanities Lab is staffed by young researchers with intensive expertise in text mining, text analytics and network analysis.

The IISH has a board of directors with three members:

• Leo Lucassen - General Director
• Karin Hofmeester- Director of Research
• Eric de Ruiter - Director of Data & Collections

Within Research and Collections, departments are formed that each have their own department heads.