Today, Digital Humanities are viewed from different perspectives: as an academic subject or discipline with a distinct agenda; as a bundle of research methods; as a communication, information and publication infrastructure; as a practice that changes our epistemologies; or simply as a label to take part in funding programmes. Debates arise whether all forms of digitization of our research and teaching can be considered Digital Humanities (which would mean that we are all digital humanists), or whether only systematic and self-reflexive research approaches using expert software that advance our research methodologies should count as Digital Humanities – and where to draw the dividing line between these two areas. Obviously, there is a wide range of qualified answers to this question, and consensus between different disciplines and countries varies widely.
With the process of institutionalization underway or well advanced in numerous European countries, we – the editors of the German information platform for historians H-Soz-Kult – think that a review and evaluation of the evolution of Digital Humanities in Europe is a timely task.