This award celebrates the adoption of digital preservation tools and approaches in an organization that is not explicitly a memory institution. The prize in this category consists of a trophy to be retained by the recipient, certificates for participating individuals, and a cash prize of £1000 payable to the lead nominee’s organization.

Meet the finalists:

GOG Preservation Program

Nominee: Good Old Games (GOG) The GOG Preservation Program is a systematic effort by GOG, a PC digital distribution platform, to maintain playability of classic video games on current and future gaming systems. Since its public launch in November 2024, the program has grown to cover 267 titles, with over 1,400 applied fixes, improvements, and, whenever possible, restored content. Each title undergoes dedicated technical work — from custom DirectX wrapping to installer rebuilds — backed by a long-term commitment to ongoing maintenance. GOG also contributes to broader industry preservation efforts through its EFGAMP board membership and public advocacy, including a dedicated game preservation panel at GDC 2026. Read more

LDF Recollection: Innovating a Civil Rights Archive

Nominee: NAACP Legal Defense Fund Archives Team The NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) is a nonprofit law firm spearheading the fight for civil rights since 1940. In Fall 2024, the Archives Team launched LDF Recollection, a public digital repository containing over 13,000 institutional records. Our mission is to steward and share this collection documenting the historic and ongoing struggle for civil justice and political, educational, and economic equity. With our partners at Durable Digital, we have innovated a digitization workflow supporting the unique preservation and security needs of a legal civil rights archive by integrating Recollection with archival software and a customer relations management database. Read more

Diageo Archive AI Cataloguing Assistant Application

Nominee: Alice McFarlane, Diageo Archive The Diageo Archive AI Cataloguing Assistant application is an Azure-hosted prototype that automates and embeds preservation-aware metadata creation, validation, and quality control into archive cataloguing workflows. It improves metadata consistency, reduces manual effort, and strengthens the long-term accessibility and usability of born-digital and digitised heritage assets. Combining OCR, image analysis, structured metadata mapping, and human quality assurance, it enables scalable, auditable cataloguing while retaining archivist oversight. The initiative demonstrates how AI can support responsible digital preservation in a commercial context by reducing risk, improving data quality, and enabling sustainable management and automation of digital collections at scale. Read more

 This category is sponsored by:

This award distinguishes excellence in outreach, training and advocacy. The award includes a cash prize of £1000, a trophy and certificates.

Meet the finalists:

Brazilian Training Program in Digital Preservation

Nominee: Miguel Angel Mardero Arellano The Brazilian Training Program of the Cariniana Network aims to offer open and advanced courses that address essential aspects of digital preservation. The program's main objective is to provide students with an in-depth understanding of the fundamental concepts of digital preservation. The program's structure and the active participation of researchers from the DRÍADE Research Group consolidate a continuous learning ecosystem, promoting specialized and accessible training for professionals from diverse fields. The modular approach and synchronous interaction enabled not only the transmission of technical knowledge but also the exchange of experiences and the development of proposals applicable to the realities of the participating institutions. Read more

Digital Archives Program Workshop

Nominee: Dylan Bremner Dylan Bremner, Digital Archivist at the City of Edmonton Archives in Canada, has supported his professional association, the Archives Society of Alberta, by sharing his expertise with the archival community. He developed and taught a Digital Archival Program Workshop which gave small archives throughout the province knowledge on how to start a digital archives program and to digitize/migrate and preserve tape cassettes, VHS and optical discs. The workshop simplified complex technical concepts and archival theories for participants who are not formally trained in the archival profession. The training has provided small archives with capacity to begin programs for digital archives. Read more

Digital Ghosts - Visualising Scotland's Web Archives

Nominee: Dr Andrea Kocsis Digital Ghosts is a practice-based research project with a huge impact and an even bigger heart. Centred on a public exhibition at Inspace Gallery, Edinburgh, it used creative visualisations and data-physicalisation artworks built from the Scotland on the Internet collection of the UK Web Archive, curated at the National Library of Scotland, to engage non-specialist audiences with web preservation. The project asked how visualising messy, fragmented GLAM metadata can communicate the scale of web decay, and how this creative approach can facilitate the use of web archives by exposing the heroic web preservation efforts. Read more

This category is sponsored by:

This award acknowledges exceptional contributions to practical research and innovation activities. The prize in this category consists of a trophy to be retained by the recipient, certificates for participating individuals, and a cash prize of £1000 payable to the lead nominee’s institution.

Meet the finalists:

Transcripción y difusión de la documentación manuscrita del archivo municipal de La Nucía mediante el uso de inteligencia artificial / AI-Enabled Transcription and Dissemination of Handwritten Documents from the Municipal Archive of La Nucía

Nominees: Archivo Municipal de La Nucía The La Nucía Municipal Archive project uses artificial intelligence to make historical handwritten documents accessible to everyone. Over 30,000 pages have been digitised, and 10,000 pages—mainly council minute books dating back to the 18th century—have been automatically transcribed using advanced technology. This allows users to read and search documents that were previously difficult to understand. A new, user-friendly website provides open access to this material, benefiting citizens, students, and researchers alike. The project transforms a traditional archive into a modern, searchable resource, helping people connect with their local history in an easy and meaningful way. Read more

EOSC EDEN Core Preservation Processes (CPPs)

Nominees: Micky Lindlar, Bertrand Caron, Juha Lehtonen, Maria Benauer, Johan Kylander, Kris Dekeyser, Matthew Addis, Mattias Levlin, Mikko Laukkanen, Felix Burger, Tiina Koho, Franziska Schwab, Laura Molloy, Fen Zhang Digital Preservation knows many processes - but what do these processes look like? And where can institutions that are planning to grow their digital preservation capability find reference process descriptions? Until recently, such a point of reference was missing. The Core Preservation Processes (CPPs) are a set of 30 processes that every digital archive should undertake, either by itself or through an associated service. Identified and described within the EOSC EDEN project, they aim to provide practical implementation guidance for digital preservation processes and workflows. Read more

An OAIS-Compliant Archiving Platform with DNA Connector within OLOS

Nominees: Pierre-Yves Burgi, Hugues Cazeaux, Dario Genga, Michaël El Kharroubi, Florient Serex, Jérôme Charmet This nomination focuses on a DNA-based archival storage system within OLOS.swiss, an OAIS-compliant preservation system. A connector enables both the encoding of archives into DNA, and communication with a micro-factory that performs all the genomic processes necessary for the storage and retrieval of the archives. Preliminary experiments demonstrate the successful encoding/decoding of megabyte-scale files, despite high error rates associated with DNA-related processes. This work contributes to the autonomous DNA data storage by demonstrating its integration into an OAIS-compliant long-term preservation system, showing that DNA preservation can function as a production platform and no longer merely as a laboratory proof-of-concept. Read more

This category is sponsored by:

This award celebrates significant collaboration across institutional, professional, sectoral and geographical boundaries which have had a demonstrable and positive impact on digital preservation. The award includes a cash prize of £1000, a trophy and certificates.

Meet the finalists:

From Basement to Citizen: An Integrated Approach to the Digitisation, Preservation and Access to Environmental Permits

Nominees: Sofie Ruysseveldt and Ruben Van Driessche (Digital Archives Flanders) This initiative provides local authorities in Flanders (Belgium) with a practical blueprint for managing environmental permit files in a fully digital way. By combining a framework agreement for digitisation with sustainable archiving and access, it treats digitisation, preservation and reuse as one coherent chain. Through direct integration between permit management software and the Digital Archives Flanders (DAV) E‑depot, archiving is embedded in daily administrative processes (archiving by design). Using shared services and existing Flemish digital building blocks, the project reduces complexity for local authorities while ensuring reliable preservation and accessible permit information for public servants, citizens and other stakeholders. Read more

Future Nostalgia: Safeguarding the knowledge of floppy disks

Nominee: Leontien Talboom (Cambridge University Library) Future Nostalgia: Safeguarding the knowledge of floppy disks grew out of practical challenges encountered while working directly with legacy media at Cambridge University Library. Faced with limited guidance and uncertainty around best practice, the project set out to capture and share the knowledge needed to work confidently with floppy disks. Through collaboration with practitioners, conservators, and retro-computing communities, it developed the open-access Copy That Floppy! Guide. The project brings together hands-on experience, community knowledge, and experimentation to support others facing similar challenges, helping ensure that the data stored on obsolete media can still be preserved and accessed. Read more

IIM Africa Digital Preservation Capacity Building and Collaboration Initiative

Nominees: Institute of Information Management (IIM) Africa The Institute of Information Management (IIM) Africa has advanced digital preservation across Africa through large-scale training, certification, and cross-border collaboration. By integrating digital archiving, data governance, and data protection into professional development programs, IIM has equipped professionals and institutions with the skills to safeguard digital assets for long-term access. Through partnerships spanning multiple countries and sectors, the initiative has strengthened capacity, supported policy development, and enabled sustainable digital preservation practices in emerging economies, addressing critical gaps in digital continuity and information resilience. Read more

This category is sponsored by:

• Advocacy

Watch the Ceremony

In an exciting finale to the Digital Preservation Awards 2022, organisations and practitioners of digital preservation from around the world gathered together for a glittering presentation ceremony on Monday 12th September 2022, at the iPres 2022 conference! Watch the ceremony now:

Meet the Winners

ARCHIVER Project  

2022 Winner of the International Council on Archives Award for Collaboration and Cooperation presented by Meg Phillips and Neil Grindley ARCHIVER is a unique initiative in the context of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) that spent 3 years developing innovative services for Long Term Digital Preservation of scientific datasets. R&D was performed competitively by commercial suppliers, over 3 phases, selecting pilot services led by Arkivum and LIBNOVA, for scientific data archiving and preservation. The R&D was driven by a diverse range of stakeholders including CERN, operating the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, DESY (the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, in Germany), the EMBL-EBI (European Bioinformatics Institute, in Cambridge), and PIC (Port d’Informació Científica, near Barcelona), contributing high-value datasets associated to the EOSC. Watch interview with Joao Fernandes, Matthew Addis and Teo Redondo Watch DPA2022 Winners Webinar on the Archiver Project

The effective preservation of archaeological virtual reconstructions 

2022 Winner of the Software Sustainability Institute (SSI) Award for Research and Innovation presented by Neil Chue Hong and Kirsty Lingstadt Many different professional communities are currently working on the preservation of complex digital objects, but there is not a unified structure drawing together all the numerous threads around preserving archaeological virtual reconstructions. This PhD programme showed that archaeological virtual reconstructions are a blend of artistic and scientific creativity. These ‘hybrid digital objects’ require delicate care to be preserved effectively in the long term. Thus, when considering a virtual reconstruction project, there are practical aspects that need to be tackled. In addressing these issues, this thesis presents a foundation (preservation framework) for how those various sectors fit together. Watch interview with Panagiotis Papageorgiou Watch DPA2022 Winners Webinar with Panagiotis Papageorgiou

Learning through doing: building digital preservation skills in Wales

2022 Winner of the Dutch Digital Heritage Network Award for Teaching and Communications presented by Remco van Veenendaal and Roxana Maurer The Learning through Doing initiative is rooted in addressing issues arising from digital preservation in a practical way and addressing them collectively. The opportunities presented by the use of platforms such as Teams and Zoom enabled proactive engagement and facilitated connection across Wales. These platforms were used to deliver the Saving the Bits training programme which provided  a general introduction to digital preservation principles and practices for those in the cultural, education and public sectors in Wales. Another element of the initiative addressed the specific issue of remote deposit of digital content to the National Library of Wales, which is in the process of refinement.  Through working with students at Aberystwyth University in a practical workshop, issues identified which were addressed to improve Library processes. Through interactive engagement across Wales, skills and knowledge were built, underpinned  by the resources, community knowledge and training materials  which are freely available through the internet. Watch interview with Sarah Higgins and Sally Mcinnes Watch the DPA2022 Winners Webinar on Learning through Doing

sasha arden with 'Access to Artistic Content on CD-ROMs' 

2022 Winner of the The National Archives (UK) Award for the Most Distinguished Student Work in Digital Preservation presented by April Miller and Lotte Wijsman CD-ROMs completely changed the realm of artistic possibilities in the 1990s, but have you experienced one in the last ten years or so? The answer is likely no, and that is because CD-ROMs are now an obsolete format. This means that CD-ROMs are no longer made or in use. Further, changes in computer hardware, namely the phasing out of optical disc drives, as well as in operating systems like Mac OS 9, have made it impossible to view and experience the contents of existing artist CD-ROMs. Because of these difficulties, an important part of digital art’s history is in limbo. As part of their graduate internship with New York University in 2021-22, sasha worked on access to artist CD-ROMs with Collection Care Research at Tate. Keith Piper’s project Relocating the Remains (1999) served as a case study to explore the technical aspects of how to enable interaction with the CD-ROM contents. Sasha also paid attention to maintaining essential characteristics like color, and behaviors like click reaction times or rollover animations, which can be affected by current methods of access. Their research also considered where artist CD-ROMs sit within Tate’s collections and how that affects discoverability and access, as well as available preservation resources. Watch interview with Sarah Cook who accepted the award on behalf of sasha arden Watch the DPA2022 Winners Webinar with sasha arden

National Centre for Truth & Reconciliation Digital Preservation Program 

2022 Winner of the Research Data Alliance Award for the Most Outstanding Digital Preservation Initiative in Commerce, Industry and the Third Sector presented by Connie Clare and Karen Sampson The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) is devoted to the study of the history and legacy of the Canadian residential school program. In 2020 the NCTR won a $6 million Canadian Foundation for Innovation grant (CFI) to develop a digital preservation program for over four million digital documents and 7,000 recordings of Indigenous testimonies of the history and legacy of the residential school program. The project created a digital infrastructure and workplan for preservation of its digital holdings to make NCTR materials meaningfully available to Indigenous communities in  support of the rights and dignity of Indigenous peoples. Watch interview with Emmanuel Modozie Watch the DPA2022 Winners Webinar on the NCTR Digital Preservation Program

Archiving Reproductive Health 

2022 winner of the Award for Safeguarding the Digital Legacy presented by Kieran O'Leary and Patricia Sleeman The 'Digital Preservation of Reproductive Health Resources: Archiving the 8th' (Archiving Reproductive Health) project aims to provide long-term preservation and access to at-risk born-digital content generated by grassroots women’s reproductive health movements before and during the campaign to repeal the 8th Amendment of the Irish Constitution. Funded by Wellcome and administered by the Digital Repository of Ireland, the project is publishing and making available digital collections from activist organisations that otherwise would be lost. The preservation and publication of these collections add significantly to our understanding of women's rights movements and the history of reproductive healthcare in Ireland. Watch interview with Clare Lanigan and Lorraine Grimes Watch the DPA2022 Winners Webinar on the Archiving Reproductive Health Project

PREMIS Data Dictionary and related resources 

2022 winner of the DPC 20th Anniversary Award presented by Kevin Ashley and Edith Halvarsson PREMIS is the de-facto standard for preservation metadata and is today implemented in countless digital preservation systems – open as well as closed source, serving large archives as well as small repositories, supporting end-to-end processes as well as tools for specific tasks. But PREMIS is also much more than metadata: the Data Dictionary is a description of core information about digital objects. It can be used to implement PREMIS, but also to understand digital preservation processes and to benchmark your own solution. Lastly, PREMIS is also an active community as can be seen in countless implementation fairs, tutorials, workshops and discussions around the globe over the past 20 years. Watch interview with the PREMIS team Watch the DPA2022 Winners Webinar with the PREMIS team

Neil Beagrie, Adrian Brown, Dr. Denise de Vries, Nancy Y McGovern, Prof. Zhang Xiaolin

2022 Winners of the DPC Fellowship Award presented by Micky Lindlar and Barbara Sierman Watch interview with Neil Beagrie Watch interview with Adrian Brown Watch the acceptence video from Dr. Denise de Vries, Nancy Y McGovern and Prof. Zhang Xiaolin

Find out more about the Digital Preservation Awards 2022 Finalists 

The DPC would like to thank our international panel of judges and all sponsors for their continued support in ensuring the Digital Preservation Awards can continue to recognise and celebrate achievements in the field of digital preservation. 

• Advocacy

Watch the Ceremony

In an exciting finale to the Digital Preservation Awards 2024, organisations and practitioners of digital preservation from around the world gathered together for a glittering presentation ceremony on Monday 16th September 2024, at the iPRES 2024 conference in Ghent, Belgium! Watch the ceremony now:

See photos from the awards ceremony

Meet the Winners

Collaborative models of care: preserving Australian First Nations digital cultural heritage 

2024 Winner of the International Council on Archives Award for Collaboration and Cooperation presented by Gustavo Castaner and April Miller Collaborative Models of Care was designed to provide a ‘best-practice blueprint’ for non- First Nations professionals wanting to contribute their digitisation and digital preservation skills, knowledge and expertise towards the care of digital cultural heritage held by and produced in Australian First Nations communities. Originally designed by Rebecca Barnott-Clement in the role of Digital Preservation Analyst and subsequently supported by Coby Edgar of Agency Projects, the project involved digitisation of archival assets for Bula’Bula Art Centre and the completion of a DPC RAM assessment (a tool to assess an organisation’s digital preservation maturity) for Bula’Bula Art Centre and Milingimbi Art Centre. Watch interview with Rebecca Barnott-Clement Watch the finalist video to find out more

Improving access to and sustainability of the Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures (PARADISEC)

2024 Winner of the Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI) Award for Research and Innovation presented by Lisa Griffith and Arif Shaon The Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures (PARADISEC) holds records from 1,370 small languages, mainly audio recordings made since the 1950s. It has 16,000 hours of audio in 230 terabytes of material in 428,000 files stored in Amazon S3. This year’s initiative is to move all items to Research-Object Crate format. RO-Crate allows the whole collection to contain self-describing items so makes it more durable over time, and less reliant on a catalog that is at risk of failure, with consequent metadata loss. This also means they can then be delivered on wifi from a Raspberry Pi device, even in remote offline locations. Watch interview with Julia Miller Watch the finalist video to find out more

Study group Bits and Bots for building digital skills

2024 Winner of the Dutch Digital Heritage Network Award for Teaching and Communications presented by Marjolein Steeman and Matthew Burgess Bits and Bots is a study group teaching digital archivists coding skills, currently focussing on Python and front-end development. The group is open to all and everyone, including the organisers, are learning together as a community instead of in isolation. Digital skills are increasingly important to digital preservation and it is not surprising that “Computer Programming” is listed as one of the skill elements in the Digital Preservation Coalition’s Framework. Coding can be daunting, Bits and Bots tackles this challenge, making learning fun by teaching coding through the creation of games. The community consists of 47 members from 5 continents. Watch interview with Susanne van den Eijkel, Francesca Mackenzie and Lotte Wijsman Watch the finalist video to find out more

Claudia Muñoz with Preservación de documentos digitales: el caso de Wikimedia México / Preservation of digital records: the case of Wikimedia Mexico 

2024 Winner of the CLOCKSS Award for the Most Distinguished Student Work in Digital Preservation presented by Alicia Wise and Thomas Ledoux Mexican NGOs work on a wide variety of social problems related to technology, gender, violence, and support for social causes. However, their information and history, produced and disseminated in digital formats, are at risk because the organizations lack adequate digital preservation strategies to ensure the permanence and access of their information in the long term, which is aggravated by problems such as the digital divide or lack of budget. Therefore, Wikimedia Mexico, an NGO that promotes free access to knowledge, is taken as an example to establish digital preservation strategies according to its characteristics and context. Watch interview with Claudia Muñoz Watch the finalist video to find out more

NHS research records: Reducing Risk 

2024 Winner of the Research Data Alliance Award for the Most Outstanding Digital Preservation Initiative in Commerce, Industry and the Third Sector  presented by Hilary Hanahoe and Mihaiela Donisa Barts Health NHS Trust has implemented a specialist digital archive that ensures records from clinical trials are preserved, accessible and usable for their whole retention period (mainly 25 years). This service is now being extended to other NHS Trusts who are finding it difficult to procure an archive themselves; thus helping to preserve data within wider healthcare research and raising awareness of digital preservation in this area. Barts is at the forefront of digital preservation for research study records as this is a complex and challenging environment that is just starting to generate discussion. Watch interview Sandra Blake and Jennifer Dando Watch the finalist video to find out more

DDLD – Living Archive 

2024 winner of the The National Archives (UK) Award for Safeguarding the Digital Legacy presented by Sonia Ranade and Jo Ana Morfin DDLD – living archive is the first and only repository preserving and cataloguing the work produced by killed journalists in Mexico. Over 163 reporters have been killed in Mexico since 2000. However, their work is largely unknown and faces the risk of disappearing, either because it was published in websites that lost their domain with the death of their founders or because their content was taken down from social media. Through the DDLD – living archive, over 19,000 published news pieces from 83 journalists killed in Mexico between 2000 and 2023 have been preserved. Watch interview with Alejandra Ibarra Chaoul Watch the finalist video to find out more

Gladys Kemboi

20244 Winner of the DPC Fellowship Award presented by Barbara Sierman and Nathan Tallman Watch the acceptence video from Gladys Kemboi

Find out more about all of the Digital Preservation Awards 2024 Finalists 

The DPC would like to thank our international panel of judges and all sponsors for their continued support in ensuring the Digital Preservation Awards can continue to recognise and celebrate achievements in the field of digital preservation. 

• Advocacy

The search for the very best work in digital preservation will begin again this year with the Digital Preservation Awards 2024! 

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 organisations who have made significant contributions towards a sustainable future for our digital assets. 

The exciting process will culminate in a presentation at the iPres 2024 Conference in Ghent on Monday 16th September 2024.

Visit this page again soon for more information about how to participate.

• Advocacy

We are very grateful to our sponsors and DPC Supporters for their generous contributions. Their support helps us recognize and celebrate outstanding contributions to digital preservation. A small number of sponsorship opportunities are still available, and we would be pleased to hear from organizations interested in supporting the Awards.

Category Sponsors

• The International Council on Archives, sponsor of the Award for Collaboration and Cooperation

• National Library Board Singapore - Award for Research and Innovation

• KB National Library of the Netherlands,  sponsor of the Award for Teaching and Communications

• The National Archives (UK), sponsor of the Award for Safeguarding the Digital Legacy

• SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITY AVAILABLE - Award for the Most Distinguished Student Work 

• The Research Data Alliance, sponsor of the Award for the Most Outstanding Digital Preservation Initiative in Commerce, Industry and the Third Sector

• Academic Preservaton Trust, sponsor of the Award for Resilience, Maintenance and Continuity

Our DPC Supporters are Bronze Sponsors of the Digital Preservation Awards

Sponsorship opportunities

A limited number of sponsorship opportunities remain available, including category sponsorship and other partnership options. If your organization would like to sponsor the Digital Preservation Awards, please email angela.puggioni@dpconline.org.

• Advocacy

The Digital Preservation Coalition is pleased to announce its international panel of expert judges for 2026:

Matthew Burgess

State Library of New South Wales

Matthew Burgess is a digital preservation specialist focused on standards and practices for managing born-digital collections. As Lead Digital Archivist at the State Library of NSW, he works with internal and external partners to strengthen digital preservation capability and ensure long-term access to digital heritage. He leads the Digital Preservation Network for National and State Libraries Australasia and contributes to regional initiatives of the Digital Preservation Coalition.

Gustavo Castener Marquardt

International Council on Archives 

Gustavo Castañer is a professional archivist and records manager. He currently works as Unit Head of Information Resources and Services at the Asian Development Bank (Manila). He has worked previously in archives and records management of the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, European Commission, Council of the European Union and European External Action Service, as well as Spanish State Archives and the National Archives of Catalonia. He is especially interested in archives of international organizations, collection outreach, archival education and the use of archives to promote accountability and the defense of Human Rights. Within ICA, he has served previously as Chair of the Section of International Organizations and board member of the Section of Archives and Human Rights.

Fatima Darries

University of South Africa (UNISA)

Fatima leads and manages strategic Library initiatives in research data curation, digitisation of heritage and special collections, digital preservation, and metadata description of commercial and digital information resources at Unisa Library and Information Services. Her career has spanned both client and technical services in the Academic Library Sector. 

She continues to serve as South African country editor on E-LIS, the international archive for Library and related sciences, as well as on the Management and Government Subcommittee of the Digital Preservation Coalition. Previously, Fatima served two terms on the Board of the National Library of South Africa, as well as serving the higher education sector for 10 years as a Board member of HERS SA, a network for women in higher education. She has served in various portfolios in the Library and Information Association of South Africa (LIASA).  Fatima holds a Master's degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Cape Town, and graduated in 2024 with the Graduate Certificate in Digital Curation from the University of Maine.

Mihaiela Donisa

Bank for International Settlements 

Mihaiela is the Archivist of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) since 2019, leading projects on digitisation, access and digital preservation of the institutions' collections. The BIS is an international organisation established in 1930 and its mission is to support central banks' pursuit of monetary and financial stability through international cooperation, and to act as a bank for central banks.

Mihaiela holds a MA in Archives and Records Management from UCL and has previously worked in archives and records management roles for European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, BBC and the European Medicines Agency.

Lisa Griffith

Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI)

Lisa Griffith is Director at the Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI). She has worked at DRI since 2017, holding a range of senior roles including Membership Manager and Programme Manager. Lisa has spoken nationally and internationally on DRI’s work and the topics of digital preservation, archives, and digital Infrastructures. She has contributed to several National Open Research Forum (NORF) committees and served as chair of the NORF PID Strategy Working group from 2023 to 2024. Lisa holds a PhD in history from Trinity College Dublin.

Hilary Hanahoe

Research Data Alliance (RDA)

Hilary serves as Secretary General of the Research Data Alliance and CEO of the RDA Foundation, leading a global community of over 16,000 members across 151 countries. She provides strategic leadership whilst managing operations, cultivating relationships with funders and stakeholders, and ensuring long-term sustainability. Her work centres on stewarding RDA's dynamic volunteer community dedicated to enabling open data sharing and reuse globally, championing the organisation's mission to break down barriers to global data accessibility.

Haliza Jailani

National Library Board Singapore

Previously responsible for the digital infrastructure programme at the National Library Board (NLB) of Singapore, Haliza worked on digital preservation early in 2008 implementing Rosetta for NLB and operationalising digital preservation processes.  She is currently Senior Deputy Director of Resource Discovery & Management, overseeing a team of librarians responsible for cataloguing and knowledge organisation systems, including metadata for digital preservation and linked data for discovery.

William Kilbride

Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC)

Executive Director for the DPC, William is the Acting Overall Chair of the Judging Panel. In his current role at the head of the DPC, he provides training and support to members as well as supporting the digital preservation community through advocacy work and enabling strategic partnerships. William is a prolific writer and speaker on the subject of digital preservation and has many years’ experience in the field, having previously held senior positions at Glasgow Museums and the Archaeology Data Service.

Michael Launchbury

The National Archives, UK

As Senior Digital Archivist Transfer Lead at The National Archives, Michael Launchbury manages born-digital transfers from government departments and public inquiries, ensuring records and metadata are prepared to remain permanently preserved and accessible. He previously worked as a Digital Archivist at the Lloyds Register Foundation, home to one of the world's largest maritime archives, where his work included managing legacy born-digital material on obsolete physical media. He completed his professional qualification in Archives and Records Management at UCL.

Nicola Laurent

Australian Society of Archivists  / University of Melbourne

Nicola Laurent is the Senior Project Archivist on the Find & Connect web resource at the University of Melbourne and a PhD candidate in the School of Social Work at the University of Melbourne undertaking research into the prevalence and impact of trauma in archives. Nicola is the International Council on Archives' New Professionals Programme Coordinator, a member of the National Archives of Australia’s Advisory Council, and a member of the Australian Society of Archivists (ASA) Advocacy Committee. She is the immediate past President of the ASA.  

Thomas Ledoux

Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF)

Thomas is the coordinator of digital production at the Bibliothèque nationale de France / National Library of France (BnF), where he has work as a software engineer for over 25 years. He has always been interested in digital objects, ranging from access on public workstations to his involvement in the BnF's Scalable Preservation & Archiving Repository (SPAR). He regularly collaborates on various open source software, such as Jhove or Archifiltre.

Jeanne Kramer-Smyth

World Bank Group

Jeanne Kramer-Smyth earned her Masters of Library Science from the Archives, Records and Information Management Program at the University of Maryland iSchool after a 20-year career as a software developer designing relational databases, creating custom database software and participating in web-based software development. She is the author of Spellbound Blog, where she has published dozens of essays exploring the intersection of archives, technology, metadata, visualization and the web. Jeanne joined the World Bank Group Archives team in 2011. Established in 1945, the World Bank Group is an international organization whose aim is to reduce poverty and promote shared prosperity around the world, and whose archival holdings illuminate the Bank’s engagement with its member countries to promote economic development. In her current role as the Digital Preservation Program Lead, she oversees the Archives Systems and Digital Preservation team and divides her remaining time between strategic planning and hands-on problem solving.

Jenny Mitcham

Digital Preservation Coalition

Jenny Mitcham is Chief Digital Preservation Officer at the Digital Preservation Coalition where she supports the DPC’s Good Practice and Workforce Development strategic objectives. She works closely with the members of the Coalition on their digital preservation challenges, as well as organising events and producing publications and other resources to support the community. She specialises in certification and maturity modelling and has an interest in finding ways of lowering the barriers to digital preservation to those who are just getting started in this field.

Jo Ana Morfin

Ex Teresa Arte Actual, INBAL

Jo Ana, Deputy Director of Ex Teresa Arte Actual, is a conservator of time-based media who works with cultural organizations and small communities of practice in the preservation of contemporary cultural and social legacies rooted in ephemera and obsolete technologies. Her practice focuses on the research and implementation of community-driven methodologies that foster inclusive, ecologically responsible, and socially embedded digital preservation practices.

Sonia Ranade

The National Archives UK

Dr Sonia Ranade is Head of Digital Archiving at The National Archives (UK), with responsibility for services supporting selection and transfer of digital records by UK Government departments, permanent preservation of the digital Public Record and access to born digital records. Her research interests include probabilistic approaches to archival description, digital preservation risk and developing new access routes for digital archives. Sonia holds a PhD in Information Science.

Arif Shaon

Qatar National Library

Arif Shaon is the Head of Digital Curation, Preservation, and Access at Qatar National Library, where he leads the strategic and operational work for the long-term curation, preservation, and accessibility of the library’s digital collections. He has previously held key roles at UNSW Library at the University of New South Wales in Australia, and at the Science and Technology Facilities Council in the UK, where he led software development and research initiatives in digital preservation, digital curation, and research data management.

Barbara Sierman

DigitalPreservation.nl / DPC Fellow

Barbara Sierman worked from 2005 to 2020 as the digital preservation manager at the Research Department of the KB National Library of the Netherlands. She was active on the Board of the Open Preservation Foundation and the Steering Committee of the IIPC. In 2018, she was awarded the Digital Preservation Coalition Fellowship for her contribution to the field of digital preservation. After her retirement, she founded DigitalPreservation.nl and worked as a consultant on digital preservation topics for various clients such as OPF, NANETH, CTS, DPC and NDE. Currently, she is preparing a publication about the beginning of digital preservation in the European National Libraries.

Marjolein Steeman

The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision

Marjolein works on projects in the area of preservation and metadata, developing and implementing preservation plans for new formats and archive services. She has worked at Beeld & Geluid / Sound & Vision for over 15 years. She studied information science at VU University Amsterdam and worked for years as an expert in data analysis and data management. Among other things, she has worked to secure various catalogs that came to Sound & Vision via merger partners or depositors. As a preservation officer, Marjolein is responsible for the preservation policy of Sound & Vision. She is also a member of the Editorial Committee of PREMIS, the data standard for preservation metadata. In addition to the certification as a sustainable archive (CTS), the ISO certificate for information security (27001) also falls under her care.

Nathan Tallman

Academic Preservation Trust

Nathan Tallman is Executive Director of Academic Preservation Trust where he articulates a vision and executes strategic management for a community-owned distributed digital preservation service. He provides operational oversight of APTrust operations, including the development of plans and processes for the lifecycle of deposited content and the integration of digital preservation processes at existing and prospective APTrust member institutions. Previously, Nathan served as Digital Preservation Librarian and Penn State University and Digital Content Strategist at the University of Cincinnati.

Heather Tompkins

Library and Archives Canada / Bibliothèque et Archives Canada 

For the past 18 years, Heather Tompkins has helped shape how Library and Archives Canada (LAC) preserves the country’s digital heritage. As a Senior Project Officer in the Digital Collections and Operations Division, her work includes providing strategic advice on the transfer and processing of digital records, contributing to policy development, and establishing LAC’s Pre‑Ingest procedures. After serving as a judge for the 2024 awards, Heather is excited to return for 2026 to celebrate the outstanding new work underway and to recognize the people who make it possible.

Benjamin Turkus

New York Public Library

Ben Turkus is the Senior Manager of Audio and Moving Image Preservation at the New York Public Library. In this role, he oversees the in-house AMI digitization lab and manages complex, large-scale vendor preservation projects across magnetic, optical, and film formats. Previously, Ben worked at the Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC) and has taught as an adjunct professor in New York University’s Moving Image Archiving and Preservation (MIAP) program for eight years.

Jessica Venlet

National Digital Stewardship Alliance 

Jessica Venlet works as the Project Manager for Digital Repository Technology at the University of Michigan Library. In this role, she is responsible for facilitating and coordinating the planning and implementation of digital repository systems that meet the library's digital preservation and access goals.

Ingeborg Verheul

KB National Library of the Netherlands

Ingeborg Verheul is currently working as Advisor Digital Preservation & Permanent Acces at the KB/National Library of the Netherlands. Throughout her carreer as a community manager she always keeps a strong focus on enhancing the connection between cultural heritage and Open Science. To some of us her name might sound familiair as in 2006 she was the author of the famous IFLA publication 'Networking for Digital Preservation', at that time a must read for every newcomer in the Digital Preservation field in the National Library.

Jaye Weatherburn

University of Melbourne 

Jaye Weatherburn is Head of Digital Preservation at the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia. Her work spans digital preservation strategy, operating model design, digital archiving practice, and the stewardship of complex digital heritage. She has led digital preservation programs and contributes to sector-wide collaboration and community development. Jaye is co-author of Preserving Digital Materials, 3rd edition (2018).y.

Elżbieta Wysocka

National Film Archive – Audiovisual Institute (FINA)

Elżbieta Wysocka is a restorer and researcher specializing in film, video and digital art. She has led national and international projects in film restoration, digitisation, cataloguing and digital preservation at the at the National Film Archive – Audiovisual Institute (FINA). She also guided the development of the Media Asset Management system and the digital preservation strategy at FINA. A member of the FIAF Cataloguing and Documentation Commission, she also worked as film restorer at Deutsche Kinemathek (FFE Program). Since October 2024, she has been Director of Digital Collections and Digitisation at FINA.

Entrants for the Digital Preservation Awards must submit a nomination by 09:00 (UTC) on Tuesday 5 May 2026 (see ‘How to Enter' for details).
Nominations are evaluated, and finalists decided by the Digital Preservation Judging Panel Meeting in May 2026.

Once announced, finalists will then be required to do the following:

• Submit a 3-minute lightning video outlining the key elements of the initiative. More details will be provided at this stage.

• With the exception of the Student Award, attend an online interview with the Judging Panel week commencing 13th July 2026, explaining the importance of the initiative the field of digital preservation.

• Provide good quality visual material – at least three hi-res jpeg images (e.g., project team, location shots, screen shots, products) – of the project to be used in publicity material relating to the Award and/or the Awards ceremony.

Only finalists will be asked for full details of their projects.

The following gives an outline of key dates. Dates will be finalized and agreed at the earliest opportunity.

  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.