CIfA Wales/Cymru - Introducing the Heritage Science Data Service with Julian Richards

This talk was recorded during the CIfA Wales/Cymru Group's afternoon of talks and discussion about Archives in Wales in June 2026 and is titled Introducing the Heritage Science Data Service with Julian Richards. In October 2024 the AHRC launched the Research Infrastructure for Conservation and Heritage Science (RICHeS), an £80m investment over five years. In the first phase AHRC have funded 17 laboratory facilities and 13 reference collections hosted in universities, museums, libraries and archives. An Access Fund helps individual or organisations cover the costs of using these services. In addition to academic organisations​, registered charitable bodies, social enterprises, commercial companies, and freelance specialists working in collaboration with eligible partner organisations are all eligible to apply to the Access Fund to cover their costs. The Heritage Science Data Service (HSDS) provides digital services which form the core of the RICHeS programme. It is managed by the ADS, and shares the same technical infrastructure and data repository. Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales is a core partner. Data from all the RICHeS facilities and all data generated via the Access Fund must be deposited with the HSDS or another CoreTrustSeal repository. In October 2025 the HSDS launched an online Catalogue of Facilities and a separate Catalogue of Data. In addition, the HSDS is working closely with the Hartree Centre at the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) to develop collaborative virtual research environments for the visualisation and analysis of data which is beyond standard desktop and laptop computers, and our virtual desktop services will be launched on 1 June 2026. We also manage a small grants programme to support the deposit of additional datasets, and to provide opportunities to work with the Hartree software engineering team to develop more online tools. We have so far made 27 awards of up to £25,000 each. A second round will be launched in June 2026, with another £0.5m available. This talk will provide an introduction to the full range of services being offered, with a focus on those which may be of interest to CIfA members working in Wales, and there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Julian Richards is Professor of Archaeology at the University of York, where he researches information management and Viking archaeology. He was founding Director of the Archaeology Data Service, and the e-journal Internet Archaeology, both established in 1996, and he is now leading the development of the Heritage Science Data Service. He has pioneered providing Open Access to heritage data in the UK, for academic, professional, and public audiences. He is Vice-President of the European ARIADNE European Research Infrastructure for archaeology. He was awarded an OBE in the 2024 New Year Honours for services to Heritage and Digital Archiving.