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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 1149

The Monastic Manuscript Project: Preservation of the Archives of Śaiva Monastic Lineages

Over the past few decades, scholars of Śaivism have recovered a wealth of manuscripts that have revolutionised our understanding of the place of Śaivism in the religious histo…

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Workmeeting EAP1145 Bulgaria2018 1 1

Documentary heritage of the traditional Protestant communities in Bulgaria

The history of Balkan and Bulgarian Protestants is still little to the general audience. Persecuted by the communist government, Protestant Bulgarians hold documents containin…

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Eap 1144

Takoradi Railway Workers' Archives Digitisation Project

At the peak of its activity, the Ghana Railway Corporation (GRC) counted 11,000 employees. The archives held in Takoradi create a snapshot of the labour history of Ghana. Heav…

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Eap 1143

The Birth of a Nation: preserving records on the Kenya-Uganda railway line

The Nairobi Railway Museum’s collection contains records on the Kenya-Uganda railway constructed between 1896 and 1901. The collection sheds light on East Africa’s social and …

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EAP1130 U 52 00836

Digitisation of the Kováts Napfényműterem photographic archive (Odorheiu Secuiesc, Romania)

Ferenczy Lukács and Kováts István Sr. were not only photographers, but also historians and ethnographers. Their photographs depict life in Transylvania between 1880 and 1925. …

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Eap 1126

A Digital Library of the Lanten Textual Heritage - Phase II

The manuscripts of the Lanten in Laos enable shamans and priests to engage Daoist deities in the rituals to reproduce the Lanten socio-cosmological order. A distinctive qualit…

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Eap 1123

Recalling a Translocal Past: Digitising Thai-Mon palm-leaf manuscripts

The Mons are credited with bringing Buddhism and a written culture to mainland Southeast Asia. The Thai Mon manuscripts represent a gap in the intellectual history of Burma an…

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Preserving endangered zoological archival material in the National Museums of Kenya

The zoological material at the National Museums of Kenya includes valuable scientific information that forms the basis of the current knowledge. However, due to heavy usage, t…

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Eap 1119

Salvaging the Historical Heritage of Land Registration Documents of the Archives of Land Registration Division and Lands Commission of Ghana

Ghana’s land records are used in the matters of land ownership and settlement. This project succeeded in creating a clear catalogue of the Land Record’s office, while digitisi…

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