In January 2007 a number of international experts in digital scholarly research and editing joined in a meeting at Huygens Institute. This meeting was called because different experts signaled a number of national initiatives that were rising to build and support the progressively digital environment in which scholarly editions are prepared, analyzed and published. It seemed it was a good time to join the different dots in an international network together and to investigate how all projects could profit from each other’s achievements.
A lot of possibilities for cooperation between the participating bodies were explored and a number of concrete ideas to develop were identified. One important outcome of the meeting was that there should be ample possibilities to exchange information on all the projects and undertakings as to gear all activities towards a common defined goal (see about for more on the goals of the project). To provide a platform for such information exchange, Huygens Institute took the lead in finding suitable funds for the initiative. The first step has been a submission of a preliminary proposal to COST to apply for funding.