Work has been underway within the EU for several years to establish a permanent research infrastructure for heritage science, E-RIHS – European Research Infrastructure for Heritage Science. In 2016, E-RIHS joined the ESFRI roadmap – European Strategy Forum for Research Infrastructures and has been in the preparatory phase ever since.
IPERION HS is the latest in a long line of EU projects and is intended to be the last step towards E-RIHS. Like the EU’s existing research infrastructures in other fields of science, E-RIHS is about sharing research resources, but also about joint education, knowledge exchange and joint research projects.
16 countries have so far indicated that they want to participate in E-RIHS, but not yet Sweden. On the other hand, Sweden has observer status. Whether Sweden should participate actively when E-RIHS starts is a political decision, it is ultimately up to the Swedish Parliament.
Timeline of related EU projects
LabS TECH (FP5, 1999-2002) Laboratories on Science and Technology for the conservation of European Cultural Heritage
EU-ARTECH (FP6, 2004-2009) Access Research and Technology for the conservation of the European Cultural Heritage
CHARISMA (FP7, 2009-2014) Cultural Heritage Advanced Research Infrastructures: Synergy for a Multidisciplinary Approach to conservation and restoration
ARIADNE (FP7, 2013-2017) Advanced Research Infrastructure for Archaeological Dataset Networking in Europe
IPERION CH (H2020, 2015-2019) Integrated Platform for the European Research Infrastructure ON Cultural Heritage
ARIADNEplus (H2020, 2019-2022) Advanced Research Infrastructure for Archaeological Dataset Networking in Europe
IPERION HS (H2020, 2020-2023) Integrated Platform for the European Research Infrastructure ON Heritage Science