Digital Project Wins International Award

A digital preservation project run by The National Archives and the University of Warwick has won the prestigious 2022 Decision Analysis Practice Award run jointly by the Decision Analysis Society and the Society for Decision Professionals.

DiAGRAM (the Digital Archiving Graphical Risk Assessment Model) is an online tool which allows archives to model the risks to their digital holdings and explore the ways in which those risks can be reduced. The prototype tool was developed in collaboration with the University of Warwick’s Applied Statistics & Risk Unit (AS&RU) as part of the Safeguarding the Nation’s digital memory project supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

John Sheridan, Digital Director at The National Archives, said, ‘This award is a recognition of a fantastic collaboration between archivists and mathematicians. DiAGRAM helps us understand and manage the risks to the digital records we hold, so generations to come will be able to use and learn from them.’

Dr Martine Barons, Director of AS&RU, said, “Whilst the value of the work is primarily seen in its efficacy for the problem at hand, external recognition by DAS/ SDP is very prestigious and I am hugely excited at the award.”

The project also involved archives partners: · Dorset History Centre · Gloucestershire Archives · Transport for London Archives · University of Brighton Design Archives · University of Leeds Special Collections

Following additional development work funded by The National Archives and undertaken by Jumping Rivers, the live version of DiAGRAM will be made available for general use in late 2022.