The European Space Agency (ESA) and the European University Institute (EUI) have reaffirmed and strengthened their fruitful partnership with the signature of an amended contract on the deposit of ESA’s historical archives at the Historical Archives of the European Union by ESA Director General Johann-Dietrich Wörner and EUI President Renaud Dehousse.
For the past 30 years, the European Space Agency’s historical archives have been hosted at the Historical Archives of the European Union (HAEU) in accordance with a deposit agreement signed between ESA and the European University Institute on 12 May 1989. To continue and deepen the fruitful archival cooperation, and to foster digital access to the historical archives of ESA, a Letter of Intent was signed on 2 May 2019 during an event at Villa Salviati within The State of the Union conference 2019. The Parties agreed to revise and amend the deposit contract of 1989 with a focus on digital access, data protection and information security.
ESA Director General Johann-Dietrich Wörner said: "Democracy needs a society that has access to real information, not "fake news". The work that we are doing together, which is to preserve and make accessible the history of our institutions, is a fundamental ingredient of "true information", and a contribution to our democratic Europe."
The amended deposit contract entails the establishment of three-year archival work programmes, as well as a dedicated archivist financed for a period of three years by ESA to treat and inventory its archival material.