Natalie Harrower

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 digital cultural heritage and Open Science practices. Dr. Harrower is a member of the European Commission's high level expert group on FAIR data implementation, and the OECD high level expert group on Business Models for Data Repositories. She is on the Governing Board for the Research Data Alliance, she chairs the ALLEA E-Humanities Working Group, and serves as an expert reviewer for the European Commission.

At the national level, Dr. Harrower serves on 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), 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

• FAIR-data high level expert group, European Commission (2018-)
• National Archives Advisory Council (NAAC) 2017-2022
• OECD Global Science Forum Expert Group on Business Models for Sustainable Data Repositories (2016-2017)
• National Open Research Forum (NORF), Ireland (2017-)
• Film Heritage Advisory Committee, Department CHG Ireland
• E-RIHS Ireland Advisory Board (European Research Infrastructure for Heritage Science)

Conference Committees

• Programme Committee, International Digital Curation Conference (IDCC) 2020
• Programme Committee, iPres2019
• Programme Committee, ICSU workshop on Open Data, 2018
• Programme Committee, PASIG 2017, Oxford
• Organising Committee, DPASSH 2017, Sussex University Brighton
• Organising Committee, Open Repositories 2016
• Co-founder & Chair, DPASSH conference (Dublin 2015)
• Co-Chair, Minitrack on Citizen Journalism and Social Media Archiving, 48th Annual HICSS conference (Jan 2015)
• Co-founder and Organising Committee for Discover Research Dublin, Dublin's first contribution to European Researchers Night (2013)

Other recent activities

• Rapporteur, European Commission conference on Countering Disinformation, 2019
• Judge, International Digital Preservation Awards, 2018
• Principal Investigator, Atlantic Philanthropies Archives Project at the DRI
• Chair, ALLEA E-Humanities Working Group (2016-)
• Member, Digital Preservation Coalition Advocacy and Communication Committee(2016-2018)
• Steering Committee, DARIAH Ireland
• Principal Investigator, Inspiring Ireland 1916 and Frongoch and 1916
• Principal Investigator, RIA, DAH PhD Programme (PRTLI Cycle 5)
• Project Manager at DRI for the Social Repository of Ireland (SFI TIDA)