DaSCH - Swiss National Data and Service Center for the Humanities, Switzerland

What DaSCH - Swiss National Data and Service Center for the Humanities, Switzerland does

DaSCH (Swiss National Data and Service Center for the Humanities) is a Basel-based, non-profit national research infrastructure founded in 2017 that provides active preservation and archiving services for humanities research data in Switzerland. The organization serves Swiss universities, research institutions, and individual humanities researchers, currently hosting 65+ active research projects and managing over 2.1 million resources including 2,500+ audiovisual items across text, image, video, and 3D data modalities.

The core technology is the DaSCH Service Platform (DSP), a research data management and preservation platform that keeps data alive, searchable, editable, and citable through persistent identifiers for every object. The platform consists of DSP-APP (web interface), DSP-TOOLS (command-line utilities), and integrates with the IIIF standard for image, audio, video, and 3D interoperability. A complementary partnership with SWISSUbase (launched November 2025) offers archiving for small datasets up to 10 GB. The organization also implements standards such as the COAR Access Rights Vocabulary for managing access levels.

DaSCH's business model is institutionally funded rather than commercially driven. Revenue flows from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), the Swiss Universities consortium, and partnership arrangements rather than fees for platform use. Pricing is structured as freemium: training workshops are free, and the first 8 hours of expert consulting are free for research groups and scholars. Distribution is via direct engagement with Swiss academic institutions, supplemented by the DaSCHCon annual conference, FORS-DaSCH webinars, newsletters, and a comprehensive Knowledge Hub documentation library. The organization coordinates DARIAH-CH activities in Switzerland and represents Swiss interests within DARIAH-EU, of which Switzerland became a full member in 2023.

Name

DaSCH - Swiss National Data and Service Center for the Humanities, Switzerland

Legal name

DaSCH - Swiss National Data and Service Center for the Humanities

Website

https://dasch.swiss

Company type

Private

Founded year

2017

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

DaSCH is a Swiss non-profit national research infrastructure, founded 2017, that provides active preservation and archiving of humanities research data through its DaSCH Service Platform, serving 65+ projects across Swiss universities with institutional funding from SNSF and Swiss Universities.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Research Data Management Platform

NAICS

Libraries and Archives (51921)

SIC

Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)

akta.pro primary industry

Reference Data Management (RDM) (HDAEADAE)

Keywords

• Research data archiving
• Humanities data preservation
• Data management platform
• Digital humanities infrastructure
• FAIR data services

Headquarters

HQ city

Basel

HQ country

Switzerland

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Operations

Revenue model

1. Government-Funded Research Infrastructure: DaSCH operates as Switzerland's national research infrastructure, funded by Swiss universities and likely Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) grants. Services include free workshops and initial consulting hours for research groups.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

DaSCH operates the DaSCH Service Platform (DSP), a research data management and active preservation platform that archives, manages, and shares humanities research data for Swiss universities and research organizations. The platform keeps data alive, searchable, editable, and citable with persistent identifiers for every object. The organization also provides free training workshops, expert consulting on data modeling and metadata standards, and a complementary small-dataset archiving service (SWISSUbase for Humanities).

Product overview

DaSCH offers a unified platform called the DaSCH Service Platform (DSP) for humanities research data archiving, consisting of the DSP-APP web interface and DSP-TOOLS command-line utilities. The platform provides active preservation, making data searchable, editable, and citable with persistent identifiers. For smaller datasets, DaSCH partners with SWISSUbase to offer SWISSUbase for Humanities as a complementary option. The portfolio also includes Training & Workshops and Expert Consulting services for research support.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• DaSCH Service Platform (DSP)

Quantifiable outcome

• 65+ research projects hosted and preserved
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers3 records

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration2 records

AI capability4 records

Feature4 records

Partnerships

Ten partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• University of BaselcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPrimary institutional host of DaSCH, providing office space and administrative infrastructure. DaSCH coordinates DARIAH-CH activities from this location. The University of Basel Digital Humanities Lab collaborates on IIIF and 3D development work.
• Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPrimary funding body for many research projects archived on DaSCH platform. Multiple SNSF-funded projects use DaSCH for data management and preservation.
• Swiss UniversitiescoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerConsortium of Swiss universities supporting the national research infrastructure.
• Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences (SAGW)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartner organization supporting humanities research infrastructure in Switzerland.
• SWITCHcoreTechnology or IntegrationSwiss research network provider supporting data infrastructure and cybersecurity for academic institutions.
• DARIAH-CHcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerNational coordination office for DARIAH (Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities) in Switzerland. DaSCH coordinates all DARIAH activities in Switzerland. Prof. Dr. Rita Gautschy serves as National Coordinator.
• DARIAH-EUcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerEuropean research infrastructure connecting 22 countries for arts and humanities. Switzerland joined as full member in 2023. DaSCH represents Swiss interests in this European network.
• IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework)coreTechnology or IntegrationOpen standards consortium for delivering digital objects. DaSCH implements IIIF standards for images, audio, video, and 3D data interoperability.
• FORScoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerSwiss National Centre for Social Sciences. Collaborates with DaSCH on joint webinar series for data management in social sciences and humanities.
• SUCHO (Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerInternational initiative to archive at-risk Ukrainian cultural heritage digital content. DaSCH, University of Basel, and DARIAH-EU support this effort.

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• Europeana: Europeana is the EU's flagship digital cultural heritage platform, providing access to millions of digitized items from European museums, archives, and libraries. It overlaps with DaSCH's cultural heritage preservation mandate but at far greater scale and broader scope.

Direct peers

• DARIAH-EU: DARIAH-EU is the European research infrastructure consortium for arts and humanities, connecting 22 member countries. DaSCH coordinates DARIAH-CH and serves as Switzerland's national representative, making DARIAH-EU its closest structural counterpart and parent network.
• Open Science Framework (OSF): OSF is a free research data management and collaboration platform hosted by the Center for Open Science. It offers similar functionality to DaSCH's DSP (project workspaces, persistent identifiers, data deposit) but serves all academic disciplines globally.
• Dryad: Dryad is a curated open data repository primarily for life sciences and social sciences. While focused on data publication rather than preservation, it competes for the same pool of Swiss institutional research data deposits as DaSCH.
• Zenodo: Zenodo is a CERN-hosted open repository for research outputs across all disciplines, offering persistent identifiers and free deposit. It competes directly with DaSCH for humanities research data deposits, with significantly larger scale and a global user base.
• Figshare: Figshare is a commercial research data repository and management platform used by universities and institutions worldwide. It offers similar deposit, citation, and preservation services to DaSCH, with broader institutional reach and a freemium commercial model.
• FORS (Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences): FORS is the Swiss National Centre for Social Sciences and a direct partner of DaSCH, co-hosting the joint webinar series on data management. It operates social science research data infrastructure in Switzerland with a closely adjacent mission and overlapping user community.
• CLARIN ERIC: CLARIN is the European research infrastructure for language resources and computational linguistics, operating across multiple member countries with national coordinating centers analogous to DaSCH's role in Switzerland for humanities data.

Regional players

• Swiss National Library: The Swiss National Library is the country's primary cultural heritage institution, collecting and preserving Swiss publications including digital content. While not a direct technical competitor, it shares DaSCH's mandate of preserving Swiss cultural and scholarly heritage and operates in the same Swiss regulatory ecosystem.

Emerging players

• SWISSUbase: SWISSUbase is a Swiss research data repository that DaSCH partners with to offer 'SWISSUbase for Humanities' for small datasets. It functions as both a complementary service partner and a partial competitor in the Swiss research data deposit space.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/dasch-swiss

Compliance2 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about DaSCH - Swiss National Data and Service Center for the Humanities, Switzerland