Digital Curation Centre - History

History

JISC took a decision to establish the Digital Curation Centre some time in 2002, having funded a number of projects in the field of digital preservation. JISC's then digital preservation focus, Neil Beagrie, recognised that a number of the more compelling challenges required more than simple preservation of materials. The term digital curation was coined to refer to more active long-term management of digital material. The original call for bids to run the center was withdrawn in July 2003, allowing the UK's e-science programme to add funding for a 4-year research programme to complement the work on education and advocacy funded by JISC. The revised call from July 2003 required bids by 2003-09-18 with an intention to establish the DCC early in 2004. The range of expertise required meant that the funders expected to see collaborative, multi-centre bids. A number were shortlisted with the winning bid chosen on 2003-11-26. Led by the University of Edinburgh (involving its School of Informatics, the National e-Science Centre (NeSC), the EDINA national data centre and the AHRC Centre for the Studies in Intellectual Property and Technology Law) the winning consortium also included HATII at the University of Glasgow, UKOLN at the University of Bath, and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC).

The DCC began operations early in 2004, with a formal launch on November 5 of that year at Edinburgh's e-science institute. Although it was intended that the centre would be inaugurated by the Duke of Edinburgh, then the university's Chancellor, he instead had to attend the funeral of Princess Alice and his place was taken by Lord Sutherland of Houndwood. The first Acting Director was Peter Burnhill, head of EDINA. He was succeeded by Chris Rusbridge from 2005-02-21 who served until 2010-04-19, when he was succeeded by Kevin Ashley.

Following the initial 3-year grant, JISC has funded 2 further phases of work at the DCC commencing in 2007 and 2010. The latter continues until March 2013. Research funding from the e-science core programme did not continue after the core programme itself was wound up. The DCC has continued research and development activities funded by a wide range of grants from other sources.

In 2011 the DCC received additional funding from HEFCE's Universities Modernisation Fund (UMF) to implement salient recommendations from the UK Research Data Service report of 2010.

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