If you create or use Heritage Science data as an employee, volunteer or student, we invite you to complete this survey. Your feedback is important for shaping and building a new Heritage Science Data Service (HSDS) with capacity to advance understanding, preservation, and management of UK heritage.

The National Heritage Science Forum (NHSF) is undertaking a User Needs consultation on behalf of HSDS, as part of the Research Infrastructure for Conservation and Heritage Science (RICHeS) programme. RICHeS was launched in October 2024, when UKRI Arts and Humanities Council (AHRC) unveiled 31 projects to create a distributed infrastructure of heritage science collections and equipment to grow the UK heritage economy and protect cultural heritage for future generations.

The RICHeS programme will maximise the research and innovation potential of UK heritage science by investing in equipment and facilities, increasing capacity and strengthening collaboration. The Heritage Science Data Service will play a key role in ensuring that equipment, expertise, reference collections and data are findable and accessible to users, and will unlock the potential for research to safeguard and grow the UK's £29 billion heritage sector.

This survey asks about your familiarity with heritage science and your thoughts on the development of the HSDS. It provides an opportunity to share your views and ideas of how the platform could support your work or interests, and to understand your expectations for the new digital services. Survey results will be important in helping the design and development teams build a service which works for all users and audiences.

The survey should take no longer than 20 minutes to complete and you can respond as an organisation or an individual. A PDF of the survey is provided to support those collecting views for an organisational response.

The survey will remain open until the 31st May 2025.

Individual responses can be made anonymously, and our reporting will not identify respondents. If you are interested in providing additional feedback, taking part in future consultations, attending focus groups or remaining part of a developing HSDS User Community, there is an opportunity to provide contact details at the end of the Survey.

The User Needs consultation is being delivered by Dr Sam Paul and Dr Manda Forster, on behalf of NHSF. If you have any questions about the survey or consultation, please contact us directly via email using: hello@tacit-heritage.co.uk

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