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Arcadia

Arcadia serves humanity by preserving endangered cultural heritage and ecosystems.

We protect complexity and work against the entropy of ravaged and thereby starkly simplified natural environments and globalized cultures. Innovation and change occur best in already complex systems. Once memories, knowledge, skills, variety, and intricacy disappear – once the old complexities are lost – they are hard to replicate or replace. Arcadia aims to return to people both their memories and their natural surroundings. What we want to preserve remains fragile, small and dispersed. But if we do not protect it – if it vanishes forever – then future generations will have no base from which to build a vibrant, resilient, green future.

Because knowledge should belong to all, we also promote open access, seeking to make information available without barriers of cost or distance. Charities, businesses, universities, schools, the media, politicians, and citizens all benefit when research and data are no longer locked behind paywalls or reserved for those who live near their repositories. The economy benefits too from better-informed decisions, improved schooling and knowledgeable citizens, from enhanced academic research and innovation based on shared knowledge.

We do not accept applications, but seek and support organizations run by exceptional individuals, operating in a cost-effective, scientifically sound, and ethical manner that share our vision.

Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin

Funder Website

Arcadia Projects

Eap 922

Digitisation and conservation of endangered paper records of the British Indian Association

The British Indian Association, founded in 1851, was one of the earliest political associations of Indian colonial subjects. The archive is an invaluable research resource on …

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Eap921 1 3 41

Early-modern texts and modern legacies: Digitisation of Manuscripts, Books, Newspapers in southern West Bengal

Private and institutional collections in southern West Bengal hold manuscripts and books that show the literary multilingual culture, along with runs of the newspaper Nihar, w…

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Eap920

Preserving Malawi endangered historical District Notebooks: 1891-1964

During the formative years of the colonial administration in Malawi, district notebooks functioned as intermediaries between orality and literacy. British administrators used …

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EAP Placeholder

Preservation and access of rare early Grantha books

Grantha script was widely used in South India to write Sanskrit material. After the arrival of printing machines, many Sanskrit texts were published in Grantha script. During …

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EAP915 Pub001

Pilot project for endangered Arabic manuscripts in Ivory Coast

Although many authors have mentioned the existence of manuscripts in Ivory Coast, information about their location, extent and content remains unclear. Kept in private librari…

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Eap 914

The Archives of Forgotten Places: The Turks and Caicos Islands

Although occupied for more than 300 years, the Turks and Caicos Islands have been historically governed from afar. The absence of direct governance has resulted in limited arc…

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EAP913 Pub005

Documenting the Arabic manuscript collection of the Yattara Family Library, Timbuktu, Mali

The Yattara family library is a manuscript collection that has been developed over centuries by a prominent family from Timbuktu, Mali. Its contents were largely unknown. An o…

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EAP910 1 1 1 2

(Re)Collecting the Heritage of the Silk Road: Tajikistan’s pre-Russian Past in Documents

While recent decades have seen a growth in the number of document-based histories of the 18th and 19th centuries in Tajikistan, the pre-Russian period remains poorly studied a…

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EAP908 Pub004

Temple manuscripts of Kerala and Karnataka

The knowledge in the palm-leaf manuscripts of the Sri Mookambika Temple allows the study of the rites and rituals performed in the Ceremonies. The project built understanding …

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