The Impact of the SEADDA COST Action

Abstract

The Saving Archaeology from the Digital Dark Age (SEADDA) COST Action ran from 2019 to 2023 and produced a wide range of publications, opportunities for capacity building and knowledge transfer. This paper will discuss the less tangible forms of impact resulting from the work of the SEADDA members working within and across their own networks. These impacts include the new avenues of communication and collaboration created through the data stewardship and management focussed National Workshops held in Norway, Serbia, Portugal, Turkey, France, Romania and Ireland. Each workshop took a different form to be suit the needs of their community, but all resulted in progress towards ensuring the long- term persistence of digital archaeological data. This paper will describe the impact of each of these National Workshops. SEADDA made and strengthened connections across a range of different areas of collaboration, primarily through work with members of the European Archaeological Council, the Digital Preservation Coalition, and the ARIADNE Infrastructure for archaeological data. Each of these connections has resulted in closer ties, ongoing collaboration and other forms of impact that would not have been possible without SEADDA. SEADDA was also committed to ensuring participation of non-EU countries which participate in the COST, and supporting doctoral students and early career researchers, and the impacts of these commitments will also be highlighted in this paper.