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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 1063

Vernacular Mathematics in Pre-Modern India

While Sanskrit sources in Indian mathematics are widely studied, this is not the case with vernacular sources. The study of the latter will shed light on the pre-modern econom…

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Eap 1 56

Survey and digitisation of individual manuscript collections in Northern Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka’s traditional knowledge has been historically recorded on palm-leaf manuscripts. These manuscripts are now primarily held by individuals, traditional medical and rel…

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Eap 1055

Slow Death for Slavery in the National Archives of Benin

The Beninese colonial court records around the abolition of slavery have been part of the UNESCO Memory of the World Register since 1997. The consequences of transatlantic sla…

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EAP1054 0

Survey of endangered audio material still available with private collectors in India

Audio recordings and replays detailing folk, classical and popular music and recordings of speeches are becoming impossible to access as the replaying equipment is increasingl…

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EAP1047

Preserving Early Ecclesiastical Sources from the State of Rio de Janeiro

Ecclesiastical documents are among the earliest records available for the history of African, indigenous, and European populations in Brazil, the largest slave society in the …

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EAP 1045 Promo photo EAP site 2

Saving the folkloric archival material preserved in Chişinău, Republic of Moldova

During the Soviet administration, field researchers working in the institutes of the Moldovan branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences created recordings of folkloric beliefs an…

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Eap 1042

Digital Preservation of Mandinka Ajami Materials of Casamance, Senegal

The centuries-old Mandinka Ajami tradition is one of least documented literary practices of Africa. The Ajami manuscripts will enable academics to access, for the first time, …

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EAP Placeholder

Safeguarding the Endangered Court Records of Malawi, 1891-1964

The judicial system in Malawi started during the pre-colonial times and followed procedures of customary law. The records of traditional courts across the country can be used …

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Eap 1039

Sanskrit and Malayalam manuscripts from the Thrissur monastic complex

The main Hindu monastic complex of the city of Thrissur is one of the most important religious centres of the Indian state of Kerala. Its collection comprises of palm-leaf man…

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