Strategic plan
The ongoing development of the ADS is framed by a five year strategic plan, which presents a shared Vision Statement for the ADS and Internet Archaeology. The purpose of this five-year plan is to define the aims for future development, ensure that the Vision Statement is realised, and that both the ADS and Internet Archaeology are adaptive and responsive to changes in internal and external environments. In addition to the overarching strategic aims, specific objectives are presented that will be reviewed and updated annually at meetings of the ADS and Internet Archaeology Management Committee to assess progress against the aims.
Vision statement
Over the next five years ADS and Internet Archaeology aim to further enhance their position within the UK historic environment community, capitalize on their standing within the international archaeological and digital heritage communities, and leverage their reputations in different spheres to become the first port of call for Open Access data and publication in Archaeology.
ADS will also further enhance its standing within the international digital preservation community by assuring its work is aligned to appropriate international digital preservation accreditation and data management standards, by proactively engaging with the preservation community, and advocating its work on guidelines and standards to a wider community to ensure the ADS remains at the forefront of data management and digital preservation.
Strategic aims
The following aims assert the organisational aspirations of the ADS and Internet Archaeology over the next five years and reflect the 10 areas of activity that provide the core functions for both services. The full Five-Year Strageic Plan for 2021 – 2026 is available to download as a PDF.
- To be the UK lead preservation service for primary data and digital resources created in the course of research in archaeology and related disciplines, following relevant standards for trusted digital repositories.
- To host the most important UK-level collection of high quality digital data sets created in the course of research in archaeology and related disciplines, and to work in partnership with other UK historic environment archives.
- To provide open and easy online access to primary data and digital resources created in the course of research in archaeology and related disciplines, either as downloadable datasets or through online interfaces which allow users to interrogate key data sets online.
- To develop and encourage the adoption of new models of electronic publication, providing a holistic service, covering publication and archiving.
- To be the primary UK-level historic environment data aggregator and to provide appropriate finding aids and resource discovery mechanisms to allow users to discover primary data and digital resources created in the course of research in archaeology and related disciplines.
- To be the primary point of advice on Research Data Management for researchers, funding bodies and archives in the UK for the archaeology and heritage sectors.
- To work with others to develop and implement agreed standards to ensure appropriate documentation and preservation of digital resources created in the course of research in archaeology and related disciplines.
- To provide encouragement and support for the re-use of primary data and digital resources created in the course of research in archaeology and related disciplines.
- To take a lead international role in research and development into preservation, access and interoperability of historic environment data, with a view to enhancing all the above services.
- To maintain effective service management and administration in pursuit of all the above aims, and to maintain financial sustainability.
These ten aims reflect the areas of activity which provide core functions for the ADS and Internet Archaeology, and can be cross-referenced to annual workplans and reports. Underpinning all ten aims is the need to provide overall financial sustainability, and to demonstrate the interplay of different sources of funding and how the support of funding in one area may provide added value for another funding body. The plan below breaks down each of these overarching aims into more specific aims and defines the key objectives required to achieve them.
Previous five-year plans
Past Five-Year Plans are available to download below.
