CHIRON (Continuing Heritage Research Infrastructure Education) started on the 1st October 2026 and runs for 30 months. The project has six partners, University College London (UCL), three Cultural Heritage-related Research Infrastructures DARIAH, ARIADNE (represented by the Heritage Science Service at ADS) and E-RIHS, and the Universities of Durham (UK) and V Ljubljani, Slovenia who attended the kick-off meeting in Florence on the 26th-27th October.

The Heritage Science Academy is hosted by E-RIHS to organise and promote training opportunities and events in Heritage Science.  CHIRON’s vision is to transform and expand the Heritage Science Academy into a true one-stop-shop for training, career development, and knowledge exchange for technical staff across the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) domain.

he Education of Achilles by Chiron, fresco from Herculaneum, 1st century AD (Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples)

The Education of Achilles by Chiron, fresco from Herculaneum, 1st century AD (Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples)
By upload by muesse – www.focus.de, Public Domain, Wikimedia

This will be achieved through:

  • The Heritage Science Handbook which will consolidate dispersed knowledge into a single structured framework, providing a clear entry point for new practitioners while guiding experienced professionals toward advanced methodologies and specialist expertise. This will be created through crowd-sourcing from Heritage Scientists to create a practical, open-access, community-led guide
  • Thematic Communities of Practice (CoPs), groups that will bring together technical staff, early career researchers, and senior experts across heritage science and allied SSH domains. CoPs will play a double role: first, as engines of co-creation, consensus building, and collective authorship of the Handbook and other training resources; and second, as durable professional networks that ensure the long-term sustainability of CHIRON’s outcomes.
  • A pilot mobility programme of one-week mobility placements for technical staff and early-career researchers, supported by a dedicated mentoring scheme.

ARIADNE will be involved in establishing the Communities of Practice, creating a career development framework, mentoring and dissemination and communication for the archaeology community.

Visit the CHIRON website for more information.

Note: CHIRON was considered to be the “wisest and justest of all the centaurs” in Greek mythology. Find out more on Wikipedia.