NDA final logo BlackIntially conceived as a two year partnership (starting November 2018) between the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC), this project was subsequently extended for another two years and is due to complete in November 2022.

The NDA is charged with the complicated task of decommissioning and cleaning the seventeen principal nuclear energy plants in the UK, a task accurately described as the largest and most important environmental restoration programme in Europe. The extended life cycle of the programme, set alongside robust commitments to security, integrity and safety, means the NDA approaches its work with a profound commitment to long-term information management, ensuring the right information is available to the right people in a format they can use and with the confidence that it can be trusted. Therefore, amongst its many challenges, the NDA is by default required to become a trusted leader for information management and digital preservation.

Oldbury2 resizedThe project draws upon the experience of the DPC and its members to leverage good practice and to advise, guide and develop policy that will enable that the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to:

  • access and secure critical legacy data and systems
  • adapt current data and systems to ensure their long-term viability
  • commission data and systems with long term resilience from the outset

The second phase of the project was designed with a greater understanding of the digital preservation challenges of the NDA in mind and includes work on a number of priority areas to build and grow the NDA's digital preservation capability.

The project is intended to inform, enhance and extend good practice and standards to benefit the DPC’s whole membership. With this in mind, many of the resources, outputs and findings from the project are being openly shared with the wider digital preservation community.

Key topics being investigated during this project include:

  • Digital preservation requirements
  • Digital preservation skills
  • Preservation of Radioactive Waste Records
  • Preservation of audiovisual archives
  • Preservation of legacy databases
  • Preservation of 3D digital engineering models
  • Preservation of content held within an EDRMS
  • Digitization of paper and photographic records
  • Preservation of geospatial data
  • Procurement of new IT systems with digital preservation in mind
  • Recovering content from portable media
  • Designated communities

 

Resources

The following resources have been created in conjuntion with this project and are available for reference or use by the wider digital preservation community:

 

Events and presentations

The work of the project was shared with the digital preservation community in the following events:

 

Blogs

You can read more about the ongoing work of the project in the following blog posts:

 


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