Twi-XL Symposium: Advancing National Research Infrastructure for Cross-Media Research

Posted byCreate LabAdmin

Twi-XL Symposium: Advancing National Research Infrastructure for Cross-Media Research

We are inviting you to join us for the final Twi-XL symposium on “Advancing National Research Infrastructure for Cross-Media Research”. This full-day event will feature distinguished keynotes, panel discussions, and roundtables, taking place on 21 November, 2025, at the Netherlands Institute of Sound and Vision (NISV) in Hilversum.

Participation is free, food and drinks will be provided.

Join us in critically reflecting on the Twi-XL journey and the future of developing (national) research infrastructure and cross-media research. The symposium welcomes researchers and practitioners from diverse fields, especially those interested in (national) research infrastructures, archiving, digital humanities, or the cross-media analysis of public discourse.

This symposium marks the finalisation and celebration of Twi-XL, and revolves around the project’s challenging task of advancing a national research infrastructure for digital cross-media research for the social sciences and humanities (SSH). 

  • The morning (9-12 o’clock) will be dedicated to hands-on workshop during which participants will have the opportunity to work with the Twi-XL infrastructure in a secure environment for analysing sensitive data (SANE). 
  • We will continue with presentations of Twi-XL research as well as reflections on the future of cross-media research in the afternoon.
  • The Symposium will end (17 o’clock) with a keynote speech and a roundtable revolving around the broader theme of ‘Promises and Pitfalls in Archiving and Analysing Digital Data’.

Funded by Platform Digitale Infrastructuur Social Science and Humanities (PDI-SSH), Twi-XL represents a partnership among leading academic institutions (University of Amsterdam, University of Groningen), IT experts (SURF), and archival organizations (Beeld en Geluid, National Library of the Netherlands) across the Netherlands. Together, our partners provide access to diverse and vast data collections, ranging from tweets and public broadcasts to archived websites, providing the unique opportunity and basis for developing the cross-media research infrastructure Twi-XL. 

Over recent years, Twi-XL has committed to facilitating access to extensive national data collections. Specifically tailored to researchers in the SSH disciplines, the project has developed digital methodologies enabling both ‘deep’ and ‘broad’ explorations of societal debates across different media platforms.

Throughout its trajectory, Twi-XL has encountered significant challenges, particularly in access to social media data and the development of a centralized infrastructure, which will underpin critical discussions during the symposium. Despite the many obstacles, Twi-XL has successfully established an infrastructure that has supported a rich and diverse body of scholarly work. These achievements will be showcased alongside keynote addresses, panel discussions, roundtables, and hands-on workshops. 

Further questions? Please get in touch with Olga Eisele via: o.eisele[at]uva.nl.