For the fourth year in a row, the Institute for Medieval Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences will host an HTR Winter School in collaboration with MARBAS and Princeton University, focusing on the automated recognition of handwritten texts in medieval and early modern sources. The course consists of two main parts: 3 online sessions (Zoom, Friday afternoons) and a three-day in-person workshop in Vienna. Between meetings, we will use two online platforms, Notion.so and Discord.com, to coordinate our work. During the first phase, participants will be briefly introduced to the theory of handwritten text recognition and comprehensively instructed in its practical application using the tool Transkribus (transkribus.eu).

In comparison to previous years, we are extending the number of groups to include Hebrew and Early Modern German (in collaboration with the Institute for Habsburg and Balkan Studies of the Austrian Academy of Sciences). Thus, we will work in seven groups, focusing on various languages and scripts: Carolingian Latin – Late Medieval Latin – Medieval Czech – Early Modern German – Byzantine Greek – Syriac – Medieval Hebrew

Each group will be supervised by a small team of specialists who will select several sources connected with their own expertise (see details below). We will then use these passages for training new HTR models and improving existing models, while learning about various intricacies and challenges. During the in-person workshop in Vienna, we will finalize the projects and, additionally, we have planned an excursion. At the end of the course, you will receive a certificate, and the results will be published on Zenodo and HTR-United with the names of the contributors.

REQUIREMENTS
The course is primarily designed for Master‘s and PhD students. However, we will consider other applicants as well. IMPORTANT: There are clearly defined requirements for each group! Please review the requirements and sources to be covered before applying by clicking on the following link: https://www.oeaw.ac.at/imafo/veranstaltungen/detail/htr-of-historical-sources. The course will be taught in English.

NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS
There is no strict limit on the number of virtual participants. However, due to capacity constraints, the in-person workshop in Vienna is limited to 10 participants per group (and five participants for the Hebrew group). All accepted virtual participants will have the opportunity to attend the plenary sessions of the in-person workshop via Zoom (group sessions are not included).

COSTS
There is no participation fee, but you are expected to cover the cost of your travel to Vienna, including accommodation.

APPLICATION
Please, send a short CV and cover letter in a single PDF document to HTR.school@oeaw.ac.at and to Jan.Odstrcilik@oeaw.ac.at and Leon.Puerstinger@oeaw.ac.at before September 15th 2025 with “HTR School 2025” as the subject. Please don’t forget to carefully read the requirements of the respective teams and indicate which team you would like to join in your e-mail and in your application. If you have any questions, don‘t hesitate to ask. You will be notified before/on September 26th about the results.Programm

3 ZOOM ONLINE sessions (always from 14:00 to 17:00)

Session 1 / Friday OCT 24
– What is HTR? A general introduction
– Transkribus 1 (uploading documents, layout recognition, simple transcription)
– Introduction into manuscripts and working in groups

Session 2 / Friday NOV 7
– Transkribus 2 (introduction to models, CER, learning curve)
– Working in groups (first transcripitions)

Session 3 / Friday NOV 21
– Exporting documents / Sharing is caring: How to share and publish your data 1 (introduction)
– Tagging structures and text
– Working in groups (training of models)

3-day-workshop in person at Vienna

Thursday Dec 11
– Finishing work on the transcription and models
– Sharing is caring: How to share and publish your data 2
– Working in groups

Friday Dec 12
– Alternatives to Transkribus
– What can you do with automatic transcriptions?
– Working in groups

Saturday Dec 13
– Time to finish the work
– Presentation of results by working groups

Source : Austrian Academy of Sciences