The Collaborative Research Centre 948 (SFB 948 “Helden – Heroisierungen – Heroismen) in cooperation with the Open Encyclopedia System created the online encyclopedia Compendium heroicum, an interdisciplinary reference work that reflects the current state of research on heros and heroines.

Dr. Georg Feitscher (Research coordinator “Compendium heroicum”, University of Freiburg) presented the online encyclopedia Compendium heroicum at the public launch event on the 9^th of November 2018 in Freiburg. The project coordinator of OES, Christoph Schimmel (Center for Digital Systems, Freie Universität Berlin) gave a short introduction to the technical infrastructure that supports the open access publication Compendium heroicum.

These two introductory presentations were followed by a panel discussion on prospects and challenges of digital scholarly communication towards research in the Humanities. Prof. Dr. Anna Schreurs-Morét (Co-editor Compendium heroicum, Professor of art history, University of Freiburg) highlighted the epistemological change the Compendium heroicum is having within the Collaborative Research Centre, while Prof. Dr. Nicolas Apostolopoulos (spokesperson of the Open Encyclopedia System) reflected on the motivation behind developing the Open Encyclopedia System. Dr. Christoph Kümmel (German Research Foundation) pointed out the influence of technical infrastructure on research in the Humanities and the DFG’s strategy of funding such research infrastructures. The panel was completed by Prof. Dr. Anita Traninger (Co-spokesperson EXC 2020 “Temporal Communities”, Freie Universität Berlin) who is planning to take OES into consideration as an open source platform in order to use it as a digital platform for researchers within the cluster of excellence “Temporal Communities” and for developing a “Living Handbook of Temporal Communities”, which shortly received the approval of funding.