The Digital Preservation Awards are back for 2026! Organized by the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) every two years, the prestigious Digital Preservation Awards is the most prominent celebration of achievement for those people and organizations who have made significant contributions towards a sustainable future for our digital assets.
The awards celebrate the work of our welcoming, inclusive, and innovative global community and focuses on initiatives, projects and collaborations in the digital preservation field, and have been been completed since the last awards round between August 2024 and July 2026.
The Digital Preservation Awards are now open for nominations!
About the Digital Preservation Awards
Created in 2004 to raise awareness about digital preservation, the Digital Preservation Awards provide a rare opportunity to engage in high-profile advocacy, articulating nuanced messages about how and why one might engage in digital preservation. They enable the DPC, acting on behalf of the global digital preservation community, to endorse and celebrate outstanding work which may go unrecognized by others, and which may be little known among the senior managers of the agencies sponsoring this work. Therefore, nominations which have received recognition through other schemes such as the NDSA Excellence Awards are unlikely to be recognized again by the Digital Preservation Awards.
In its early iterations (2004, 2005, 2007 and 2010) the DPC sponsored a single award under the auspices of the Conservation Awards. In 2012, to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the Coalition, the DPC organized the Digital Preservation Awards under its own mandate, offering 3 awards. In 2014, a further 2 awards were offered and, in 2016, the DPC Fellowship was introduced for the first time. And in 2020 a new category allowing for an explicit celebration of collaboration was added. In 2022, we marked the DPC’s 20th Anniversary with another award which celebrates a continuing, substantial and impactful contribution to the digital preservation community in any form, over the preceding 20 years. In 2026, we are offering an exciting new category to recognize the vital work of maintaining the tools, services, and infrastructure that support digital preservation over time with the Award for Resilience, Maintenance and Continuity!
The exciting process will culminate in an awards ceremony on Thursday 15th October 2026, with full details of the venue to be announced shortly!
The Digital Preservation Awards winners from 2024 have been enjoying a greater profile for their work.
From left to right: Sarah Cummings and Chris Prom, accepting the DPC Fellowship Award on behalf of the new Fellow Gladys Kemboi, Alejandra Ibarra Chaoul (DDLD-living archive), Claudia Muñoz (Wikimedia Mexico), Sandra Blake and Jennifer Dando (Barts Health NHS Trust), Rebecca Barnott-Clement (Collaborative Models of Care), Julia Miller (PARADISEC), Lotte Wijsman, Francesca Mackenzie and Susanne van den Eijkel (Bits and Bots).
The Digital Preservation Awards categories
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This award celebrates significant collaboration across institutional, professional, sectoral and geographical boundaries which have had a demonstrable and positive impact on digital preservation. |
This award acknowledges exceptional contributions to practical research and innovation activities. |
This award distinguishes excellence in outreach, training and advocacy. |
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This award encourages and recognizes student work in digital preservation. |
This award celebrates the adoption of digital preservation tools and approaches in an organization that is not explicitly a memory institution. |
This award highly commends the practical application of preservation tools to protect at-risk digital objects. |
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This award celebrates efforts that support and maintain critical infrastructure for digital preservation services and systems, ensuring the integrity and resilience of digital preservation workflows. |
This award recognizes a substantial, generous and distinguished contribution to securing our digital legacy. |
ENTER THE DIGITAL PRESERVATION AWARDS 2026 BY 09:00 UTC ON THURSDAY 23 APRIL 2026.
We are very grateful to our sponsors and DPC Supporters for their generous contributions which enable the Digital Preservation Awards to take place:
If your organization would like to sponsor the Digital Preservation Awards please email angela.puggioni@dpconline.org.