The EMBL Archive is committed to engaging with professional networks in archives and records management, both locally and internationally, to foster discussions on scientific archives and records, and to support and advance archival work. As a result, the EMBL Archive has been involved in various activities and initiatives since its establishment in 2015.
International Initiatives on Scientific Archives
Committee and Workshops
The archives of science document one of humankind’s greatest sagas. They comprise stories of discovery, invention, cures and exploration. As such, these archives should be captured, preserved and shared, much like our cultural and social heritage. To this end, archivists need to find ways of collaborating with scientists to best capture scientific material for future preservation without interrupting the scientific process.
Better understanding how this collaboration might work was the subject of a Workshop on Scientific Archives in November 2016, organised by EMBL. Following its success, the EMBL Archivist and archivists from four other institutions founded an international committee on the Contemporary Archives of Science and Technology (CAST) within the Section on University and Research Institution Archives of the International Council on Archives. Since then, two more workshops have taken place.
