Following the publication of the Amersfoort Agenda, EAC Board has been very active in responding to some of the priorities that were identified. Last year a survey was conducted on the subject of ‘Making Choices’ with particular reference to development-led (or preventive / rescue) archaeology. The results have been published in summary in EAC Occasional Paper 13, and in full in the Making Choices report, and were the subject of sessions at EAA 2017 and at our 2018 EAC Symposium in Sofia. EAC wanted to establish what would help member states most in making the case for the public value from development-led archaeology. This is vital in the context of increasing scrutiny of the system and thus in the protection of one of the key means of archaeological heritage management.

The Making Choices survey has helped to identify four main areas where the EAC could help develop guidance to improve consistency and transparency. All four areas have been translated into actions, which will be taken on by three new EAC Working Groups and the existing EAC Working Group for Archaeological Archives. 

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The Making the case for development-led archaeology working group is one of the new three working groups. Its main objective will be to provide a toolkit for archaeological heritage managers to help them articulate the wide range of benefits and enormous public value arising from a system of development-led archaeology (whether public or privately funded), and to demonstrate the potential of proportionality and transparency.