Natalie Harrower

Natalie Harrower

Director

Digital Repository of Ireland, Royal Irish Academy

Qualifications
PhD, Theatre & Film (University of Toronto)
MA, Drama (University of Toronto)
MA, Political Theory (York University, Canada)
BA (Hons) Drama & Political Science (Queen's University, Canada)
DRI Role

Director

Research Interests
Digital archiving and preservation, Open Science, FAIR data, research infrastructures, Digital Humanities, born-digital content, digital cultural heritage, public humanities, theatre and film, public space and performance
Contact

n.harrower@ria.ie
@natalieharrower
@dri_ireland

Profile

Dr Natalie Harrower is the director of the Digital Repository of Ireland, located at the Royal Irish Academy. 

Dr Harrower is involved in a number of national and international activities that support and promote digital preservation, data sharing and reuse, particularly in terms of Open Science, FAIR sharing, and digital cultural heritage collections. Dr Harrower is a member of the European Commission's high level expert group on FAIR data implementation and the EOSC (European Open Science Cloud) working group on FAIR. She serves on the Governing Board for the Research Data Alliance, Europe, chairs the ALLEA E-Humanities Working Group, and serves as an expert reviewer for the European Commission.

At the national level, Dr Harrower is a member of Ireland's National Archives Advisory Committee (NAAC), and the National Open Research Forum. Dr Harrower has worked to build DRI’s community profile and partnerships, and has been instrumental in securing grants for DRI from philanthropists (Atlantic Philanthropies, Wellcome Trust), European funders (FP7, H2020), and Irish funders (Department Education and Skills, Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Irish Research Council, SFI, Enterprise Ireland). She is the PI for a number of leveraged projects for DRI, including: the Atlantic Philanthropies Archives Project, a Horizon 2020 grant for Research Data Alliance Europe activities, the multiple award-winning Inspiring Ireland (www.inspiring-ireland.ie), and in the past, the Royal Irish Academy’s contributions to the collaborative DAH PhD programme. In 2014 Dr Harrower established the international conference series DPASSH: Digital Preservation for the Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities, and chaired its inaugural conference in June 2015. In 2016, Dr Harrower successfully secured long-term funding for the Digital Repository of Ireland from the Irish government, transitioning a grant-funded project into a national infrastructure and research centre.

Prior to her appointment at the DRI, Dr Harrower was a theatre and film scholar, specialising in Irish identity, politics, and historiography, as seen through the critical lens of contemporary Irish theatre and film. Before moving to Ireland to take up an appointment at Trinity College Dublin on an IRCHSS-funded Irish theatre research project, she was an assistant professor of Drama at Queen’s University (Canada). Prior to her appointment at Queen’s, she was a lecturer in theatre, film, and Celtic Studies at the University of Toronto. Dr Harrower received her PhD in Drama from the University of Toronto and her MA in Political Science from York University. 

Expert/Advisory Roles

Conference Committees

Other recent activities