On November 18th 2015 at 15.30, the ceremonial opening of the Leibniz-ScienceCampus project, “Empirical Linguistics and Computational Language Modeling”, will be held in the “Bel Etage” and “Senatssaal” rooms of the Old University building of Heidelberg University. The Leibniz-ScienceCampus is a joint research project involving the Institute of German Language in Mannheim and the Institute of Computational Linguistics at Heidelberg University. The project was started this September and seeks to use large language resources of German for enabling analysis and exploration of German language texts from different genres and domains by means of new models and tools. The tools and methods developed through activities of the Leibniz-ScienceCampus will furnish solid foundations for empirical research questions in the digital humanities.
Prof. Dr. Bernhard Eitel, Heidelberg University President, will start the opening event with his welcoming speech. Additional greetings will be spoken by Theresia Bauer, Minister of Science, Research and Art of Baden-Wuerttemberg, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Matthias Kleiner, President of the Leibniz Association, and Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Ludwig M. Eichinger, the Director of the Institute of German Language. An introductory speech about the goals and purposes of the Leibniz-ScienceCampus project, entitled “How much linguistics is in computational linguistics?” will be delivered by Prof. Dr. Anette Frank. Prof. Dr. John Nerbonne from University of Groningen will give a guest lecture on the topic “Community of values: Empiricism and modelling”.
The evening of the ceremonial opening will end with a reception for invited guests.