Transforming Access project – RICHeS visit to Athens
A few weeks ago, the core Transforming Access leadership team for our RICHeS project funded by UKRI got together in Athens. Professor Mark Jackson (PI) and Dr Maria Duggan (both Newcastle University) met with the BSA project leaders (Professor Rebecca Sweetman, Dr Evangelia Kiriatzi and Dr Nathan Meyer) for planning discussions. The rest of the BSA team involved in the project joined in for general updates and discussion.
We were also very happy to welcome Matt Seager, Senior Operation Manager for RICHeS, who visited the British School at Athens for the first time to get an idea of the range and depth our collections. The BSA team took Matt, Maria and Mark on a tour of the BSA site before diving into the targeted collections, focusing on the scientific collections at the Fitch (sherd nerds unite!) and highly important Peter Ucko archive collection of ethnographic fieldwork on traditional potting in Crete.
The combined Newcastle and BSA teams then met with Professor Julian Richards and Dr Holly Wright, representing two of the UK’s premier digital repositories: the newly founded Heritage Science Data Service (HSDS) and the Archaeological Data Service. Julian and Holly shared the vision for digital repositories in the UK and abroad as well as the promising connection between the Transforming Access repository and that at HSDS.
Transforming access to Mediterranean cultural heritage science collections is part of the Research Infrastructure for Conservation and Heritage Science (RICHeS) programme, funded by the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council through the UKRI Infrastructure Fund.