UK National Heritage Science Strategy report

In 2006 the UK House of Lords Science and Technology select
committee published an inquiry report on science and heritage.  One
of the recommendations of that report is the development of a
national strategy for heritage science.  Since October this year, a
project has been underway to produce this strategy, which will be
underpinned by three reports currently in preparation.  The first of
these reports has been completed and can be downloaded from the
document library section of the National Heritage Science Strategy
website, see

    <URL:http://www.heritagesciencestrategy.org.uk>

The other two reports and the strategy itself will be available
later in the year.

This report focuses on the role that science plays in the management
of the UK's heritage, and makes suggestions about where increases in
understanding could improve current practice.  Specific issues
include the need for further investigation of the rate of decay and
thresholds at which decay processes are initiated for a range of
materials; the need for improved management of environments for
display and storage and long term survival of heritage assets; and
recommendations for additional development of assessment and
monitoring tools and improvements in access to information and
equipment.

The report will be available on the NHSS website for the duration of
the strategy development.  The project is keen to receive views on
the report and if you want to comment please do so by the end of May
2009.  There is a response form available online which you can use
to feed back your comments on the report.  The comments provided
will be summarised in a report made available on the NHSS website,
and although the report will not be updated as a result of the
comments, the summary of responses will be used as part of the
evidence base when the strategy is produced.

As part of the strategy development, there will be a stakeholder
meeting held towards the end of November and there is a section on
the response forms for potential participants to register their
interest in attending this meeting. If you would like any further
information about the strategy, the first report, or the stakeholder
meeting, please contact the strategy coordinator

Jim Williams


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 22:64
                   Distributed: Tuesday, May 5, 2009
                       Message Id: cdl-22-64-015
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