CREATE is short for Creative Amsterdam: An E-Humanities Perspective, a research programme and lab established in 2014. We are based at the Humanities Labs building at the intercity campus of the University of Amsterdam. Our project integrates research on historical cultural industries and research in the field of digital humanities. We investigate how cultural industries have shaped Amsterdam’s unique position in a European and global context, from the seventeenth century until the present day. In doing so, we collect data on the various cultural sectors of Amsterdam, link and enrich datasets, and develop novel search, and analysis tools.
At the core of CREATE you find a group of (young) researchers supervised by principal investigators. These PI’s develop new and exciting research avenues and collaborate closely with Postdoctoral researchers, PhD researchers, Pre PhD fellows and students. Assistants help the CREATE staff, facilitate Pre PhD research, and develop their own projects. Data scientists and programmers assist where necessary.
If you would like to contact the CREATE Team for any questions or inquiries, please email us at createlab@uva.nl
Prof. dr. Julia Noordegraaf CREATE’s project leader is Professor of Heritage and Digital Culture and director of the Amsterdam Institute for Heritage Research (AIHR).
J.J.Noordegraaf@uva.nl
0205257279
Dr. Christian Olesen is Assistant Professor Digital Media & Cultural Heritage, specializing in digital audiovisual heritage, digital methods for media historical research and practice-based approaches.
C.G.Olesen@uva.nl
Dr. Melvin Wevers is Assistant Professor in Digital History at the University of Amsterdam. He is also the director of the Cultural Analytics and AI Lab (CANAL). His research interests include the modeling of cultural-historical processes, multimodality, method in history, and historical advertisements.
M.J.H.F.Wevers@uva.nl
Boudewijn Koopmans is impact developer humanities. He is involved in forging new partnerships with the cultural sector and beyond.
I.B.Koopmans@uva.nl
Ivan Kisjes † (1976 – 2025)
Programmer, and part of the core team of CREATE. He supported a wide range of researchers and the Amsterdam Time Machine project on a structural basis
Leon van Wissen MA is programmer. He has studied Dutch and specialised in computational linguistics and literature.
L.vanwissen@uva.nl
Dr. Nanne van Noord is an assistant professor specialising in computer vision for audiovisual collections and cultural data.