EAC Annual Meeting 2025

The symposium was held at the Artus Court, Gdańsk. © Tobiasz Bułynko, National Institute of Cultural Heritage, Poland

The 26th EAC Annual Meeting took place in Gdańsk, 27-29 March 2025. It was the largest EAC meeting to date, with more than 130 delegates. The event was organised by the National Institute of Cultural Heritage, Archaeological Museum of Gdańsk and Museum of Gdańsk, and was hosted by the Museum of Gdańsk. The EAC is honoured that the Annual Meeting was granted the Patronage of the Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

The theme of the symposium was 'Life after life of archaeological archives – accessibility and re-use of archaeological collections in heritage management’. The sessions addressed the importance of FAIR data, the role of repositories and the public benefit of archaeological archives. It was a popular topic which generated a great amount of discussion.

At the General Assembly, thanks were given to Ann Degraeve (Belgium) who retired as EAC President, and Marjolein Verschuur (the Netherlands) was welcomed as her successor, with Agnes Stefansdottir (Iceland) as Vice-President. David Novák (Czechia) was elected as a new Board member, and thanks were given to Gabor Viragos (Hungary) and Martin Tomášek (Czechia) who stepped down.

A series of workshops were held during the annual meeting, allowing members and colleagues to discuss four priorities identified in the survey undertaken in Brussels in 2024. Results of the workshops will be published later in 2025.

In addition, the EAC launched a series of new publications. Firstly, the Proceedings of last year's symposium 'Urban Archaeology and the Cities of Tomorrow' was published by Archaeolingua and Internet Archaeology. Then three new guidance publications were issued, on the topics of Research Frameworks, Archaeological Significance and the use of Lidar in Heritage Management.