The Digital Curation Centre (DCC) , currently in its second phase of funding, was originally setup with a broad remit to 'help ensure that data generated today can survive changes in technology and remain accessible to users in the future'.
DCC Phase 1 (2004 - 2007)
This phase has now concluded and the final evaluation report is available here.
DCC Phase 2 (2007 - 2010)
In the three years since the start of Phase 1 of the Digital Curation Centre, there has been considerable growth in the sheer volume of research data outputs from eScience–related activities together with an increased understanding of the relevant issues associated with digital curation and preservation practice. There have also been significant developments on the political front with regard to national policy developments, funded programmes and international collaboration.
In the UK, the intense resourcing of e-Science has decreased somewhat, moving into a more mainstream activity, while in the US Cyber-Infrastructure activities and focus are increasing. The US National Science Board Long-lived Digital Data Collections report and the follow-up NSF Cyber-Infrastructure Strategy will have significant impact. Similarly in Australia, the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy will soon be established. Meanwhile in the UK, the JISC Capital Programme has brought a further increase in the funding for institutional and related repositories for England in particular, and Wales to an extent. These are really for curation of resources of all kinds, even though often seen as access provision for texts.
At about the same time as the DCC, the Research Information Network (RIN) has been established, dealing with a wider range of issues but across much the same stake-holder groups. In discussion, the DCC and the RIN understand that both will benefit from better ways of working together.
In Europe, substantial funding has been put into digital preservation in the last call of the 6th Framework, and in the first calls of the 7th Framework. Meanwhile the Commission is recommending acceleration of digitisation and preservation activities (expressed in cultural terms, but broadly interpreted), and a number of Roadmaps are emerging suggesting national and international strategies.
Research funder policies are becoming more explicit about requirements to manage and make available (often in Open Access mode) all kinds of digital outputs, reflecting societal demands for accountability and efficiency, and the extraordinary potential value of these resources. Coupled with the inexorable surge of scientific research and scholarly activity into the digital domain, the demand for information resources and related activities in digital curation will clearly continue. While expertise is growing in some communities as experience builds, the range of communities facing demands to curate data properly grows even faster. There is a real need for a Digital Curation Centre, and this is properly reflected in the relevant sections of the JISC Strategy and supported in principle by research funders.
The groundwork laid in the DCC’s first Phase includes the techniques developed, the research undertaken, and the strong links to the infrastructure components developed by the European projects CASPAR and PLANETS, themselves built on the OAIS reference model. Building on this groundwork, digital curation must be built into the wider JISC and European research and e-Science frameworks, and into the research lifecycle. As specifically requested by JISC, the DCC Phase 2 has a specific focus on research and science data, rather than generic digital preservation issues