IEEE Workshop on Historical Handwriting Analysis, Natural Language Processing and Knowledge Graphs (HHA-NLP-KG)
Venice, Italy (hybrid event) • September 7–9, 2026
The Historical Handwriting Analysis, Natural Language Processing and Knowledge Graphs (HHA-NLP-KG) workshop aims to explore the convergence of Artificial Intelligence, historical handwriting recognition and identification, and Natural Language Processing in technologies with applications in digital humanities and cultural heritage. As large-scale digitisation initiatives increasingly bring historical documents into the digital realm, new challenges and opportunities arise in making these sources accessible, interpretable, and reusable for both scholars and the public.
A central focus of the workshop is historical handwritten text recognition (HTR) and its role in transforming manuscript sources into machine-readable text. Particular attention will be paid to normalised transcriptions – such as abbreviation expansion and orthographic regularisation – which go beyond relatively straightforward automatic diplomatic transcription and address the more challenging task of producing text that is both computationally and semantically accessible. These processes not only enhance readability but also significantly improve the performance of downstream NLP tasks. As a complementary line of inquiry, the workshop will also address writer identification, which enriches the digitisation of historical manuscripts by adding valuable metadata alongside textual transcription.
Building on digitised and normalised textual data, the workshop will highlight how NLP techniques – such as named entity recognition, relation extraction, topic modelling, and semantic linking – can support the construction of knowledge graphs. These structured representations enable deeper analysis of historical data, support interoperability across collections, and foster new forms of knowledge discovery and access. By connecting people, places, events, and concepts across time and corpora, knowledge graphs open new perspectives on historical inquiry and cultural heritage interpretation.
The workshop also seeks to address methodological, epistemological, and ethical questions raised by these technologies: how normalisation choices affect historical meaning, how uncertainty and ambiguity in sources can be modeled, and how Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven pipelines can remain transparent, explainable, and inclusive. By bringing together researchers from computer science, digital humanities, archival studies, and linguistics, the workshop aims to foster interdisciplinary dialogue and advance responsible AI practices that enhance access to historical knowledge without oversimplifying its complexity.
Prospective authors are encouraged to submit previously unpublished contributions from a broad range of topics, which include but are not limited to the following:
From Historical Documents to Structured Text
› Historical Handwriting Recognition (HTR) and OCR for Manuscripts
› Paleographic and Linguistic Challenges in Historical Text Processing
› Normalised Transcription and Abbreviation Expansion
› Writer / Hand / Style Identification
NLP and Semantic Enrichment of Historical Texts
› NLP for Digitised Historical and Archival Texts
› Information Structuring
› Named Entity Recognition and Linking in Historical Sources
› Semantic Modeling of People, Places, Events, and Concepts
› Knowledge Graph Construction from Cultural Heritage Data
Infrastructure, Transparency, and Societal Impact
› Ineroperability and Linked Open Data for Digital Humanities
› Data Accessibility and Reuse
› Explainability and Uncertainty Modeling in Historical AI Pipelines
› Accessibility, Reuse, and Public Engagement with Digitised Heritage
Important Dates
Paper submission deadline: April 12, 2026
Authors’ notification: May 2, 2026
Camera-ready submission: May 15, 2026
Early registration deadline: May 20, 2026
Conference dates: Sept 7–9, 2026
Submission Guidelines
Submitted manuscripts should not exceed 6 pages (plus 2 extra pages, being subject to overlength page charges) and should be of sufficient detail to be evaluated by expert reviewers in the field. The workshop’s proceedings will be published by IEEE and will be included in IEEE Xplore subject to meeting IEEE Xplore’s scope and quality requirements.
The guidelines for authors, manuscript preparation guidelines, and policies of the IEEE CH conference are applicable to AFCH workshop. Please visit the instructions page for more details. When submitting your manuscript via Easychair, please make sure that the workshop’s track WS-HHA-NLP-KG is selected.
Workshop Committees
Program Chiars
Arianna Traviglia, Italian Institute of Technology
Paolo Merialdo , University of Roma TRE
Sara Ferro, Italian Institute of Technology
Technical Program Committee
Sara Ferro, Italian Institute of Technology
Arianna Traviglia, Italian Institute of Technology
Paolo Merialdo, University of Roma TRE
Wedad ElZayady, Italian Institute of Technology
Supported by
