Editor’s Note

With every issue of EU Research, we discover glimpses of tomorrow but also glimpses of yesterday. The past is often as fragmented, uncharted, and uncertain as the future. We are constantly losing and rediscovering the past, which is fragile and broken, and not always treated with the reverence it deserves.

We’re still discovering answers about our past, uncovering secrets lost in the relentless march of time, and even when we have our discoveries, they can be too easily forgotten all over again. A digital archiving project in this issue made me think of how such archiving might progress, going forward, for us all.

Today’s potential with digital archiving, multi-media storytelling and open access, means we can reignite the past and make time detectives of us all. We can find original sources of historical events from digital hubs, we can offer insights into discoveries, and we can immerse ourselves in stories with online searches. Archiving can now be a way of storytelling too, not just filing. We can animate, film, and present different formats for better, wider engagement.

As we go forward in time there will be more media, more immersive technologies, and more available data including raw data for citizen science projects, so we can even become part of the story of discovering.

As a seasoned editor and journalist, Richard Forsyth has been reporting on numerous aspects of European scientific research for over 10 years. He has written for many titles including ERCIM’s publication, CSP Today, Sustainable Development magazine, eStrategies magazine and remains a prevalent contributor to the UK business press. He also works in Public Relations for businesses to help them communicate their services effectively to industry and consumers.

Consider that our entire lives are now digitised as standard, so future generations may be able to have more insight than we currently do, into how we lived and what we were like, our ideas, our language, our mistakes, and our insights. We are recording our lives in ways that future generations may be able to truly understand who we were.

In terms of archiving science, EU Research is doing its bit. We are free to read online, and every issue is digitised in its entirety. Science is for everyone and should be for the benefit of everyone, that’s what we believe.

Hope you enjoy the issue.

Richard Forsyth Editor