Today I will be talking about the current state of crowdfunding and crowdsourcing in the public and academic spheres related to archaeological practice. How does it enhance research, heritage and public understanding of archaeology? I will go into detail about these definitions. I will show the practical aspects of this research with case studies from the Netherlands and the UK, which evaluate specific qualities of innovation and provide insights into the current practice of archaeology and heritage management. And then I will conclude with an analysis of practice parameters for future developments What is Crowdsourcing? It’s a relatively new term that involves public participation. It is the practice of enlisting the services of people (the crowd) on a large scale to collectively contribute to a small task or a big project. In fact, this week is Crowdsourcing Week which is being held in Belgium. While crowdsourcing might be a new term, it is not a new concept. For example, in 1955 the State Premier of New South Wales ran an international competition offering 5,000 pounds in compensation for an architectural design of a National Opera House building to be positioned at Sydney harbour. Out of 233 entries from 32 countries, Danish architect Jorn Utzon won the competition with his designs and in 1957 he was commissioned to do the final drawings for the Opera House and supervise its construction. Today it is known as the Sydney Opera House, and since 2007 it has been listed under UNESCO as a World Heritage Site and turned into an Australian identity icon. The beginning of the 21st century has brought about more crowdsourcing opportunities via the Internet, a network of networks hosting online communities on a global scale. Crowdsourcing can be seen as a strategic model that attracts an interested, motivated crowd of individuals capable of providing different solutions to traditional forms of business. Crowdfunding is closely related to crowdsourcing, but can function on its own. It enables the crowd to pick and choose a project to fund, which can enable a project to get off the ground or further improve the process of an ongoing project. In 2014, 63 million euros crowdfunded over 2000 projects in the Netherlands alone. You can see some examples of companies that crowdfund a variety of projects, including archaeology and heritage projects. Crowdfunding has gained momentum in different sectors over the past several years, encouraging producers and consumers to interact. This does not limit the crowd being passive members of the public consuming products, but members of the public who can purchase an experience and be actively involved in a project. For example, archaeology companies in the UK such as MicroPasts and DigVentures have capitalised on projects with the use of crowdfunding and crowdsourcing elements in their company design. MicroPasts allow the crowd to engage with archaeological and historical data by online crowdsourcing. The outcomes of which have lead to new collaborations and crowdfunding new projects. In 2012 DigVentures crowdsourced and crowdfunded an archaeological dig at Flag Fen, Europe’s first crowdfunded excavation. They crowdfunded over 30,000 pounds and crowdsourced a worldwide audience and 130 members of the crowd were trained by the expert team to help excavate the site. Crowdfunding can be seen as creating a new economic market, financially facilitated by cultivating online public interest in the field of archaeology that can lead to offline opportunities. Public archaeology is based on the premise that meanings and values from many people can improve the quality of archaeology with different interpretations of the past. This shouldn’t compromise the scientific nature of archaeology, because interpreting the past is not only a scientific act, but a cultural and social one that belong to different groups of people. This is very clear within Indigenous Australian archaeology.when dealing with Native Title and the Repatriation process. In the Netherlands, the archaeology community is well aware of the importance of public support, as archaeology can only exist if the public are interested in it, which generates legislation to protect heritage and supply funding to study and preserve it. According to the Dutch Archaeological Quality Standard, presenting monuments with a high perception value is a way to create public awareness and support for the protection of

archaeological monuments. Translating the values ascribed to the historic environment is an approach to get the public involved with their own cultural heritage, which is based on a form of embodied knowledge, local identity, and shared history. Now we come to our first case study the Drentsche Aa region. From 2005 to 2009, a research action programme of the Drentsche Aa region was carried out, addressing the growing awareness in the Netherlands that nature management, heritage management, and public participation need to be more integrated. The region itself contains over 3,500 archaeological find spots from almost every period. With a long history of settlement, it is described as one of the most unspoilt sandy soil landscapes in the NorthWest European lowlands with well preserved historical stratification. This makes it more than just an important Dutch landscape, but an important European one too. The Dutch Cultural Heritage Agency recognises that the Drentsche Aa National Landscape project was interdisciplinary. The collaboration and input from researchers from different disciplines also included the input of knowledge and ideas from local residents and community organizations. This highlights the practice as being an acceptable model to which the Dutch government finds agreeable, as it is further emphasised by the Agency that scientific knowledge will have a direct relationship in the social practice of environmental policy via action research in the future. Many small projects were undertaken in the Drentsche Aa region, but notably, the ones that focused on public participation involved experts, volunteers, residents and students. The Landscape Biography involved the longterm history of Drentsche Aa region resulting in a book; a source of inspiration aimed at the wider public. The Field Names Projectbrought insight into how local residents perceive the current Drentsche Aa landscape and how they might play a role in the future for the region; a good example of collaborative research. The cultural heritage open days that were held also brought about positive economic gains to the region. The Landscape Visioninvolved public meetings for input on the landscape vision that guided the policies of all involved, which included the local public to participate along with the experts. Since the completion of the project in 2009, new financial opportunities have arisen such as the Drentsche Aa Foundation Fund, a National Parks initiative, to generate income from the public and be invested into the region. Their website uses crowdfunding to further improve the process of developing the region with rhetoric that aims to strike an emotional chord with the public... ‘Do you have a warm heart towards the Drentsche Aa?’ The chairman of the fund expresses his concerns to the Dutch public specifically, making them very aware that they can demonstrate their commitment by making a monetary donation, thus making them partly responsible, but at no point does the website address the broader European audience. If the Drentsche Aa region is praised for being one of the best preserved stream valleys of Western Europe with a long history of settlement, with nature and agriculture coexisting for thousands of years, the Foundation Fund initiative should be made more accessible online for the public beyond the Netherlands. For example, the online model employed is already limiting in that there is no language option for the broader public to better understand why the region is so important. When I completed this research earlier this year there were no crowdfunding alternatives that could be made outside of the Netherlands, but when I checked last week, the fund will now take everyone's money. which is great, but the limitation of the crowdfunding platform lies in its design. It is not transparent, nobody can see which projects their money supports. Nor is there any opportunity for the public to be involved in any of the projects beyond receiving ‘a warm fuzzy feeling’ for crowdfunding the region. Since 2010, the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte divided tasks in the field of nature conservation and rural development. The legal obligations were transferred to the Provinces, who then became

responsible for their local policies and largely responsible for their own funding. This was probably one of the reasons why the Drenthe Province turned to the public for crowdfunding. The Drentsche Aa is part of the European network of nature areas, Natura 2000. This means that the Netherlands contribute to the Pan European Ecological Network, which aims to protect and promote the development of species and ecosystems to ensure their survival. If the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture is bound by international agreements on National Parks to ensure the functioning of the Dutch system as a whole, then this network of politics, planning, land use, and nature conservation requires more involvement from a range of different participants. Now let’s shift to the second case study, Scotland’s Coastal Heritage at Risk Project. It started in 2012 and still continues today. The project was developed by SCAPE, a charity group run by experts that researches, conserves and promotes the archaeology of Scotland's coast. The Heritage at Risk Project relies on volunteer citizen archaeologists to assess sites that are ‘at risk’ from coastal erosion. The project builds upon more than a decade of archaeological research. Between 1996 and 2011, 28 Coastal Zone Assessment Surveys were completed, covering 30% of the Scottish coast. These surveys have all been digitised and made available online to the public via the SCAPE website, where anyone can access and download the files. From around 11,500 sites recorded, onethird of those sites carried a recommendation for further work. The recommendations had not been pursued because the large number of sites outstripped the available resources, however, SCAPE endeavoured to work towards a solution through the Heritage at Risk Project Information about every single site that has ever been recorded is made available online via an interactive map. There are some 940 red and orange dots that represent potentially important coastal heritage sites that have been identified as 'at risk' from erosion. The data is constantly being improved upon by local knowledge, as a result of the surveys conducted by locals who provide recommendations through the ShoreUPDATE mobile app. There are online tutorials and information to guide the public on how to use the app, take appropriate site photos, and carry out a survey for submission to the archaeologists and heritage experts. There are also training events available for people in various areas to participate in. The crowdsourced public are actively exploring their archaeological and historical past by taking part in surveys and salvage excavations. The project is collaborative. It gives the crowd an opportunity to participate at sites that have an existing ‘high priority’ status. This aspect of the project aims to mediate the use of limited resources into sites that are valued by the public and have a value placed on them by heritage professionals. While it is the experts from SCAPE who appear to ultimately decide what projects go ahead, it is the information contributed by the crowd that help to identify what is important and what is at risk. It can improve how to manage coastal heritage in Scotland and enable archaeological experts to better prioritise sites and funds, along with the public. This project won an award last year for ‘Best Community Engagement,’ promoting ‘good practice’, and advancing public education. Interpretations made by the public has improved site information that is continually disappearing through climate change, natural destruction and erosion. The concept of ‘heritage’ as future ‘action’ is quite clear. This form of online crowdsourcing for offline participation is beneficial in that groups and individuals can carry out work that archaeological experts could not undertake en masse in a short amount of time. There is also an unforeseen opportunity here for tourists, who can use the map to explore new areas of coastal heritage in Scotland that are not represented in travel guides or trip advisors. As there are no developers who pay for the damage of coastal erosion affecting archaeological sites, involving the public sector makes a lot of sense in this context. It is rare to construct coastal defences for eroding heritage sites and there are no legal obligations for any agency to take any action to protect them. The model this project uses involves an output of crowdsourced labour,

which can be viewed as a service rather than a product. The product is the result of knowledge that is gained by crowdsourcing the public who want to take part. What the Scotland case study recognises is that a ‘one size fits all’ solution does not apply to all archaeology and cultural heritage sites. The development for collaborative partnerships with charitable trusts, professional experts, branches of government, and crowdsourced community groups have all contributed in different ways. In the Netherlands, the e­depot for Dutch Archaeology was established by data archiving and networked services (known as DANS), together with the Cultural Heritage Agency. This online platform allows researchers to insert their own data sets which is made available to the public. Unfortunately, some of the reports that are ‘open to the public’ are restricted to ‘archaeology group members’ only, including some of the reports that were conducted for the Drentsche Aa case study. Whether there are cultural differences that affect the archaeological practice, these two European case studies focus on different reasons for the use of crowdfunding and crowdsourcing in their design. In the Netherlands it was primarily to build identity and develop landscape biography for future generations, while in the UK it was aimed to solve the ongoing environmental problems of climate change. The increasing pressure of the market in the archaeological sector has demonstrated that alternative forms of entrepreneurial ventures, such as crowdfunding and crowdsourcing, are creating new socio­economic markets that are facilitated by interested stakeholders outside of academia and the commercial sector. Crowdsourcing lends itself more to the concept of ongoing innovations and creative solutions to the field of archaeology and cultural heritage at large, both online and offline. The same applies to the concept of crowdfunding, which is an alternative form of funding. There will always be tensions between different professionals, academics and ‘the crowd’, but with the changing society in which we live in, equal access, involvement, and openness are increasingly demanded. Digital access to information allows the crowd to get involved and better educate themselves. Open access to information can also promote new opportunities for the archaeological and heritage sectors. Coincidentally enough, this week is International Open Access Week in which online access is really encouraged. Openly sharing the results of scholarly research can potentially transform the way research and scientific inquiry are conducted. The question that I leave with you then should not be ‘does the participationof the publicallow for better public understandingof archaeology? But in fact, ‘does allowing the public to participatemake for better archaeological practice?’