The UCDS group researches how various users interact with systems and consume and produce data. We are interested in the many socio-technical challenges related to a sustainable, inclusive and fair Digital Society.
We are an international and diverse team of researchers active in Human Computer Interaction, Knowledge Representation, Human-centric AI and ethical computing. Our application contexts include Culturally and Socially-aware AI, Research infrastructures, Digital Humanities and computational social science, FAIR and fair data, brain-computer interfaces, Knowledge Graphs, smart environments, ICT for Development and AI for neuro-rehabilitation.
Our group has played an active role in the development of Semantic Web technologies and models including OWL, RDF 1.1, PROV and SKOS. We are involved in various nationally and internationally funded research projects. Our group has extensive experience in interdisciplinary research and research collaborations with cultural and academic institutions such as Rijksmuseum, Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, Wereldmuseum, the National Library of the Netherlands, KNAW institutes (IISG, HUC, DANS, Huygens,..). We also collaborate with governmental and industry partners. UCDS is part of the Department of Computer Science at the Science Faculty of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
Recent blog posts
- Workshop “Let’s talk FAIR” at DHBenelux2025
Workshop “Let’s talk FAIR: (Re)using FAIR vocabularies and schemas in humanities and social sciences” at DHBenelux 2025 The collaboration between… Read more: Workshop “Let’s talk FAIR” at DHBenelux2025 - Comparing FAIR Assessment Tools and Their Alignment with FAIR Implementation Profiles Using Digital Humanities Datasets
More good results from this collaboration between projects ODISSEI and CLARIAH is the paper entitled “Comparing FAIR Assessment Tools and Their Alignment with… Read more: Comparing FAIR Assessment Tools and Their Alignment with FAIR Implementation Profiles Using Digital Humanities Datasets - SSHOC-NL talk at Leipzig Semantic Web Day
Andre Valdestilhas will give a talk about the SSHOC-NL project and related activities at Leipzig Semantic Web Day (#LSWT2025) colocated at Data Week Leipzig… Read more: SSHOC-NL talk at Leipzig Semantic Web Day - International Workshop on Semantic Materials (SeMatS)
We will be organizing the second edition of the International Workshop on Semantic Materials (SeMatS) colocated at ISWC 2025. URL: https://sites.google.com/view/semats2025 contact: a.valdestilhas@vu.nl - Exploring AI with Communities in Kuching, Sarawak
From April 7th to 12th, 2025, two researchers from UCDS visited Kuching, Sarawak. This visit, made possible through our… Read more: Exploring AI with Communities in Kuching, Sarawak - Linked Open Data for Cultural Heritage in The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Cultural Heritage and Conflict
Victor de Boer and Sarah Shoilee wrote an encyclopedic article summarizing the promises and challenges of Linked Open Data for… Read more: Linked Open Data for Cultural Heritage in The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Cultural Heritage and Conflict