ENArC and ICARUS

In order to create a common platform for the cooperation among the included institutions, the non-profit association “ICARUS – International Centre for Archival Research” was founded in 2007. Headquartered in Vienna, the association is to coordinate archival cooperation in all necessary aspects so as to continuously advance national initiatives at full speed, while keeping them in line with jointly developed cross-border strategies and methods.

The main challenge of this network and its platform corresponds to the challenges of ENArC:

  • The effective establishment and economical covering as well as
  • The expansion of the network.

In order to successfully meet these challenges it is necessary to create an economical, organisational but also mental basis, which shall be the aim of the ENArC project.

ICARUS essentially acts as the Europe-wide interface by collecting information on the individual initiatives of geographically scattered, remote and often isolated cultural institutions and linking them with other project ideas.
The effective establishment of the network will be taken over by the management of ICARUS. The association acts as a permanent institution and safeguards ENArC´s continuous financial independence by means of public grants and private funding as well as  own initiatives. In doing so, ICARUS is the centre of activities in terms of digitising, indexing and presenting archival records at European level. Furthermore, ICARUS serves as a platform for scientists and students from different disciplines and countries to discuss and communicate research results.