ESA and European University Institute sign new contract for historical archives
ESA Director General Jan Wörner and, the President of the European University Institute (EUI) Renaud Dehousse confirmed the new EUI/ESA ‘Contrat de Dépôt Amendé et Reformulé’, a legal contract between the two organisations, in an exchange of letters in November and December 2020.
This agreement revises the former contract signed in 1989 for the deposit of the ESA historical archives at the Historical Archives of the European Union (HAEU) which are hosted by the EUI in Florence. The amended deposit contract will establish a three-year cycle of archival work as well as a dedicated archivist financed for a period of three years by ESA to compile an inventory its archival material.
With a view to continuing the fruitful cooperation between the two organisations, and to foster digital access to the historical archives of ESA, a Letter of Intent was signed on 2 May 2019 which agreed to revise and amend the deposit contract of 1989 with a focus on digital access, data protection and information security.
Speaking on the occasion of the signing of the Letter of Intent in 2019, Jan Wörner said, “Democracy needs a society that has access to real information, not ‘fake news’. The work that we are doing together, which is to preserve and make accessible the history of our institutions, is a fundamental ingredient of ‘true information’, and a contribution to our democratic Europe."
HAEU Director Dieter Schlenker said, “The scientific archival heritage of ESA, documenting Europe’s ambition for a common and peaceful space policy, is best preserved in the Historical Archives of the European Union along with the documents of EU institutions and the many voices of movements, associations and political groups for a united Europe.”
Since 1989, access to the ESA historical archives has become completely digital, allowing for an easier consultation and more effective exchange of data and information between the two institutes. At the same time, there are some significant changes resulting from the new regulations issued in the last two decades governing the access to data and information at ESA and in Europe.
In particular, these changes reflect recent developments with regard to the security of information and data protection policies; a strong position with regard to copyright; the use of digital media as a source material as well as the digitisation of materials and the interoperability of systems, and additional developments in the EUI/ESA relationship, including archival processing.
The ESA archives preserved at the HAEU include the archival heritage of its predecessor organisations and offer invaluable information on the origins of Europe’s activities in space, as well as the decision-making and operational structures of ESA, and its international relations with Member States and other countries.