University of Portsmouth PhD graduate Dr Panagiotis Papageorgiou has won the Research and Innovation Award at the Digital Preservation Awards 2022.
The Digital Preservation Awards celebrate the achievements of individuals and organisations who have made significant and innovative contributions to creating a sustainable future for digital assets.
The Award recognises excellence in practical research and innovation activities completed between August 2020 and July 2022.
Dr Papageorgiou won the award for his PhD work on the effective preservation of archaeological virtual reconstructions. His work provides a framework for evaluating cloud-based solutions to preserve obsolete archaeological virtual reconstructions. Guidelines and results coming from this work are of great benefit to the archaeological community, and contribute knowledge to other research communities, specifically those interested in similar data types/3D reconstructions
Panagiotis said: "I remember attending the Awards back in 2014 and thought to myself that one day it would be my turn to receive it. Eight years later, I proudly accepted the award for my research project which has taken me almost a decade to finish.
"The thesis is inspired by the importance of preserving a specific aspect of virtual heritage for posterity. My research endeavours to identify a 'best practice' approach, which will eventually become part of the standard solution for everyone involved in the preservation of digital archaeological data."
The Software Sustainability Institute sponsored the Research and Innovation Award. Neil Chue Hong, founding Director and Principal Investigator of the Software Sustainability Institute, based at the University of Edinburgh, said: "The SSI are pleased to sponsor the Research and Innovation Award at the 2022 Digital Preservation Awards. Ensuring that born-digital artefacts - including software, data and models - are preserved is essential so that researchers can use them in the future. We are delighted that Panagiotis Papageorgiou's work on preserving archaeological virtual reconstructions has won this year: it points to the importance of understanding how to manage complex digital objects."
Throughout his doctoral studies, Panagiotis had a tuition fees-only scholarship from the University of Portsmouth's School of Creative Technologies. He managed to attend the iPres 2022 conference thanks to two Career Development grants funded by the Digital Preservation Coalition, of which the University of Portsmouth is an Associate Member of.
Dr Papageorgiou said: "As far as the next steps of my academic research are concerned, I would love to further explore and expand my research interests at a post-doctoral level. For example, my recommended specification could be extended and developed as a separate framework for preservation-ready objects, for the broader field of the preservation of digital archaeological data."
Watch an interview with Dr Papageorgiou about winning the award.
