Please find below full terms and conditions regarding the TWA Digitisation Grant offered by TownsWeb Archiving Limited.

1.0 Who may apply for the digitisation grant

Archives, business archives, public and private libraries, museums, and galleries based within Great Britain, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Island of Jersey, the Island of Guernsey and the Island of Alderney are eligible to apply for the grant.

In addition, independent heritage consultants managing/working with any of the above organisations on a digitisation project are eligible to apply. In the case of a heritage consultant project being selected for the grant funding, this may only be applied to the project submitted as part of the grant application and the funding may not be split across multiple projects.

By “UK based” TownsWeb Archiving refers to institutions and collections based in England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, and Channel Islands.

1.1 Who may not apply for the digitisation grant

Private individuals looking to digitise personal/family collections and other digitisation suppliers/bureaus are not eligible to apply for the TWA grant.

Organisations that have ongoing projects with TownsWeb Archiving may not apply for funding towards these projects. They can, however, submit an application for a different project.

TownsWeb Archiving Ltd reserves the right to judge an organisation ineligible to apply for the Grant as it sees fit.

2.0 What grant funding will be available

Three funding grants of £3,000 each will be on offer as part of the TWA Digitisation Grant 2024.

The grants will be awarded to the three applicants in receipt of the highest scores, as judged by the grant judging panel.

All other eligible institutions/organisations will be able to claim up to an optional £1,000 in match funding to put towards digitisation.

N.b. As noted in section 2.1 below: all funding will be provided in the form of TownsWeb Archiving digitisation and software services of equivalent value.

2.1 How the grant funding will be administered

Grant funding will be provided to the winning organisations/institutions in the form of TownsWeb Archiving services to equivalent cash value.

TownsWeb Archiving will calculate the cost of the winning organisations’ projects and present this to the organisation, who may then:

• Use the funding to pay for the entire project, should it amount to less than the Grant amount awarded
• Select how the funding is allocated across digitisation and other TWA services, should the total project cost be greater than the grant amount awarded

Please note – if the total project cost amounts to less than the grant amount awarded, any difference may either be used for additional TWA services or will be written off. No residual amounts will be passed to the applicant organisation.

3.0 How the digitisation grant funding may be used

The TWA Digitisation Grant may be used by the winning applicants to fund digitisation of:

In addition, part of the grant can be used to fund transcription of metadata and OCR (optical character recognition) data capture.

3.1 How the digitisation grant funding may not be used

TWA Digitisation Grant funding may not be used for:

• Archive website design/build
• Setup of our digital collections management/publishing software
• Projects that do not involve at least some element of image capture
• On-site digitisation (i.e. digitisation at the client’s premises)
• Audio-visual digitisation projects
• 3D digitisation projects
• Cataloguing of entire collections
• Pure digitisation training
• Salaries for project staff

N.b. As noted in section 2.1 all funding will be provided in the form of TownsWeb Archiving digitisation and software services of equivalent value.

4.0 How the winning applicants will be selected

Applicants will be shortlisted and scored by a panel of judges from the heritage sector. The applicants with the highest average score across all three judges will receive funding of £3,000.

Judges will judge applications across four core criteria, which will be equally weighted. These are:

• Heritage need
• Social/Community impact
• Research impact
• Improved accessibility

Further explanation of these criteria can be found within the grant application form.

4.1 Composition of the judging panel

The judging panel will consist of three judges:

• John Chambers (Chief Executive of the Archives & Records Association)
• Claire Adler (Heritage Fund Appointed Mentor & Independent Heritage Consultant)
• Casper Smithson (Chief Operating Officer at TownsWeb Archiving)

Please note: The judging panel may be subject to change.

4.2 In the event of a draw

If four or more applications achieve equal average scores after the judging process, threee winners will be selected by Casper Smithson of TownsWeb Archiving.

5.0 Digitisation grant application timescales

The grant will be open to applications from June 17th 2024.

In order for an application to be considered, the applicant must submit a completed grant application form via email to [email protected] before 11:59pm on 26th July 2024.

5.1 Announcement of winning applicants

Following assessment by the judging panel, the winners of the Digitisation Grants will be announced live via the ARA Annual Conference and via the TownsWeb Archiving blog on 29th August 2024.

5.2 Expiry of grant awards

The winning applicants’ digitisation projects must begin within six calendar months of their grant application being announced as a funding winner.
If the project isn’t underway by this date, TWA reserves the right to withdraw the funding and offer it to an alternative applicant.

5.3 Expiry of the match funding awards

The match funding pot will be open for six weeks following the Winners Announcement (29th August). The match funding pot closes on the 11th October 2024 or when all funding deposited by TownsWeb Archiving Ltd (£500 per eligible application received) has been claimed (up to £1,000 per organisation).

5.4 Project completion timescale

TWA grant funding may not be split amongst multiple projects/batches, or over multiple years. The winning applicants’ digitisation projects must be completed within 12 calendar months of their grant application being announced as a funding winner.

6.0 Marketing of winning applicants – Projects

To aid with the ongoing promotion of the TWA Digitisation Grant, TownsWeb Archiving reserves the right to publish details from the winning applicants’ project on their website, social media and email marketing channels. TownsWeb Archiving may also publish articles to relevant 3rd party organisations within the cultural heritage industry. Upon completion of the TWA Digitisation Grant, TownsWeb Archiving may also publish further details about the progress of the winning projects.

Winning applicants will be informed of any content produced by TownsWeb Archiving and will be provided the opportunity to edit and exclude specific project details prior to publication if these are of a sensitive nature or there are concerns relating to copyright infringement.

7.0 Amendments to terms & conditions

TownsWeb Archiving Ltd reserves the right to change the above terms and conditions at any time.