On November 27, 2025 the SSHOC Governing Board took the decision that activities in 2026 will be led by newly elected Sally Chambers (from DARIAH ERIC – Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities) as Chair, and Vania Virgili (Director General of E-RIHS) as Vice-Chair.
The Governing Board continues to be composed of the ERICs from the ESFRI Social Sciences & Humanities domain: CESSDA, CLARIN, DARIAH, EHRI, E-RIHS, ESS, and SHARE, together with ESFRI Projects GGP, GUIDE, OPERAS and RESILIENCE.
As the newly elected coordinators of the SSH Open Cluster Governing Board, Sally Chambers and Vania Virgili will serve voluntarily in 2026, coordinating the SSHOC Cluster. The Cluster brings together 20 members from research organisations, data archives, funding agencies, and the national nodes of the cluster’s infrastructures. They will also represent SSHOC in communications with external bodies such as the European Commission (EC), ERIC Forum, and the EOSC Association, as well as act as liaisons with the EU-wide science clusters initiative OSCARS.
Sally Chambers will be taking on the Chair role after a year of acting as Vice-Chair of SSHOC: “I am grateful to follow on from Darja Fišer (from CLARIN-ERIC) as the next Chair of the SSHOC Governing Board in 2026, in what will be a crucial year for Research Infrastructures. In the coming months, SSHOC will need to navigate the emerging landscape of Research and Technology Infrastructures, advocate for the strategic importance of the SSH RIs in the next Framework Programme, as well as understand our role in the recently launched EOSC Federation. I am delighted to join forces with Vania Virgili in her new role as Vice-Chair, to address these challenges through our shared commitment to strengthening collaboration across social sciences, humanities and now heritage science infrastructures.”
SSHOC’s governance bridges the full breadth of the research infrastructure landscape in the humanities and social sciences, including the complementary contributions of heritage science. The involvement of E-RIHS at the leadership level is especially significant, as E-RIHS recently became an ERIC (on 28 March 2025), and the cluster is proactively giving space for newly established ERICs to take leadership roles. This signals a stronger commitment to fully integrating cultural heritage expertise into the overall SSH data ecosystem.
“As a newly established ERIC, taking on the Vice-Chair role in SSHOC is, for me, a meaningful recognition that heritage science has a place at the European core of research infrastructures. I am grateful that SSHOC has, over the years, served as a vital forum for exchanging experiences and tackling shared challenges. As Vice‑Chair, I am committed to ensuring balanced representation across disciplines, supporting the Chair, and encouraging other SSH research infrastructures to step forward as leaders in future cycles. With E‑RIHS now a full ERIC, I look forward to contributing heritage science expertise to SSHOC’s mature cluster, building on past achievements and strengthening collaboration to support and represent the broader SSHOC community across the social sciences and humanities,” said Vania Virgili in her speech.
The new Chair and Vice-Chair take on their roles as of 1st January 2026, where one of their first tasks will be to present the SSHOC Annual Plan for 2026.
