ITHACA aims to articulate the economic value of caring for heritage. This project brings together an interdisciplinary team, including Associate Prof. Josep Grau-Bove (expert in damage prediction in heritage), Dr. Ricky Lawton (expert in developing evaluation frameworks for the UK cultural sector), Prof. Jane Henderson (expert in conservation and how it interacts with significance), and Prof. Kalliopi Fouseki (expert in critical heritage studies and the definition of heritage values). ITHACA responds to Strand D of the "Research culture and heritage capital with an interdisciplinary team" call, building on the ideas outlined in the Scoping culture and heritage capital report. This research will generate new knowledge and understanding of how heritage changes, and how the prevention of this change brings value to society. The key innovation of the project is the consideration of the condition of heritage as a dynamic entity. Condition changes during the lifetime of heritage, and therefore the benefits that depend on it also change. Currently, there are no well-stablished methodologies to capture this relationship, and there is no existing data that reflects it. The project is geared to impact and translational research. The ambition of the project is to advance towards an evaluation framework that considers the lifetimes of heritage. This framework needs to be not only theoretically sound, but aligned well with the needs of heritage organisations and policy makers. The main concepts used in this project, the notions of "value", "change" and "heritage asset", are complex terms that are used differently by the disciplines that collaborate in the research. The project will explore these intersections of meaning, uniting the idea of value used by heritage scientists, which is qualitative and refers to the different dimensions of significance, and the idea of value used in cultural economics, which can be quantified in economic terms. The methodology is highly interdisciplinary. To understand how economic benefits depend on the lifetime of heritage, we first need to be able to define and predict lifetimes. This is achieved with damage functions, models that predict the degradation of heritage. This project will be a watershed moment for heritage science: it will expand the number of damage functions available to predict lifetimes, and it will integrate them in a policy context. One important challenge is that not all damage functions are developed to the same level. So far, the only complete damage function is for archival materials. This project will develop damage functions for three materials that are representative of the collections in UK museums: paintings, wood-based artefacts and art on paper. ITHACA will answer the following research questions: (1) Which heritage asset typologies lend themselves to a prediction of lifetimes? (2) How do the flows of economic benefits change during the lifetime of heritage assets? (3) What is the value of care beyond extending lifetimes, including adaptation, reuse, increased access, and deaccessioning? The developed damage functions will be used to make predictions of lifetimes in realistic scenarios. In collaboration with the Imperial War Museum, the functions will be applied to collections under relevant conservation strategies, contexts of exhibition, curation, and interpretation. This will reveal how lifetimes change with different conservation strategies, considering the balance between accessibility and preservation, and covering storage, intervention, as well as end-of-life decision such as deaccessioning. This data will then be used as part of a prototype valuation survey, which will elicit the values associated with care and its outcomes. The survey will stablish how the change in condition defines the estimation of value of users and non-users, and what are the challenges in conducting such measurements.

Public opinion on complex scientific topics can have dramatic effects on industrial sectors (e.g. GM crops, fracking, global warming). In order to realise the industrial and societal benefits of Autonomous Systems, they must be trustworthy by design and default, judged both through objective processes of systematic assurance and certification, and via the more subjective lens of users, industry, and the public. To address this and deliver it across the Trustworthy Autonomous Systems (TAS) programme, the UK Research Hub for TAS (TAS-UK) assembles a team that is world renowned for research in understanding the socially embedded nature of technologies. TASK-UK will establish a collaborative platform for the UK to deliver world-leading best practices for the design, regulation and operation of 'socially beneficial' autonomous systems which are both trustworthy in principle, and trusted in practice by individuals, society and government. TAS-UK will work to bring together those within a broader landscape of TAS research, including the TAS nodes, to deliver the fundamental scientific principles that underpin TAS; it will provide a focal point for market and society-led research into TAS; and provide a visible and open door to engage a broad range of end-users, international collaborators and investors. TAS-UK will do this by delivering three key programmes to deliver the overall TAS programme, including the Research Programme, the Advocacy & Engagement Programme, and the Skills Programme. The core of the Research Programme is to amplify and shape TAS research and innovation in the UK, building on existing programmes and linking with the seven TAS nodes to deliver a coherent programme to ensure coverage of the fundamental research issues. The Advocacy & Engagement Programme will create a set of mechanisms for engagement and co-creation with the public, public sector actors, government, the third sector, and industry to help define best practices, assurance processes, and formulate policy. It will engage in cross-sector industry and partner connection and brokering across nodes. The Skills Programme will create a structured pipeline for future leaders in TAS research and innovation with new training programmes and openly available resources for broader upskilling and reskilling in TAS industry.