The ACCORD project seeks to examine the opportunities and implications of digital visualisation technologies for community engagement and research through the co-creation of three-dimensional (3D) models of historic monuments and places. Despite their increasing accessibility, techniques such as laser scanning, 3D modelling and 3D printing have remained firmly in the domain of heritage specialists. Expert forms of knowledge and/or professional priorities frame the use of digital visualisation technologies, and forms of community-based social value are rarely addressed. Consequently, the resulting digital objects fail to engage communities as a means of researching and representing their heritage, despite the now widespread recognition of the importance of community engagement and social value in the heritage sector. The ACCORD project aims to address this gap through the co-design and co-production of an integrated research asset that addresses social value and engages communities with transformative digital technologies. ACCORD will create a permanently archived open-access dataset of community co-produced 3D digital models of archaeological sites and monuments, integrated with expressions of social value and contextual documentation. The project will actively engage community groups that have ongoing relationships to heritage places in the process of creating 3D records and models of those places. With the support of visualisation technologists, community engagement practitioners, and experts in social value, each community group will design, direct and produce their own 3D objects. The use of digital technologies to enhance and generate forms of social significance will be an important outcome, adding distinctive value to existing heritage assets and our understandings of them. Community groups will be able to draw on the resulting digital datasets for various purposes, such as public presentation, education, and tourism initiatives. The records and models resulting from the project will also provide important research resources for community groups, heritage managers and academic researchers. Evaluation will be an integral aspect of ACCORD project, examining the relationships between community groups, digital heritage professionals and the outputs they have created. This will include a review of the transformative aspects of the process, investigating changes in attitudes to 3D recording technologies during the life of the project, as well as the forms of significance, authenticity and value acquired by the resulting 3D objects. Ultimately, through the co-production of an open-access dataset, and the creation of a 'community of communities' engaged in sharing skills and experiences, ACCORD seeks to broaden capacity for the creation and reuse of digital visualisation technologies in community heritage activities and research.

Rock art is a global phenomenon. It is often a defining feature of cultural heritage and identity, attracting considerable scholarly interest, capturing public imagination and even inspiring contemporary artists. In Britain, over 6,000 rocks with 'cup-and-ring' carvings are known, although detailed knowledge of British rock art remains very limited beyond a handful of academic and private specialists, with wider awareness restricted to a few key regions such as Northumberland and Kilmartin (Argyll). Over a third of the carvings are in Scotland, an area which would be highly suitable for comparative analysis if it had a comprehensive database. Our aim is to work with local communities and heritage organisations in order to undertake a systematic study of how the rock art landscape in Britain was shaped by human actions and beliefs. The research is structured around three questions: How was rock art used in the landscape? How have the carvings been reused over time? How is rock art used and valued today? The motifs were engraved onto selected fixed natural rock surfaces during the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age (c.4000-1800 BC). While it may remain impossible to ascertain the intrinsic meanings of these carvings, the study of their form, location and contextual associations can illuminate their significance. From the Late Neolithic period onwards, many carved rocks were taken from their original contexts and reused in built structures, indicating their continued currency. In more recent times carvings have frequently been re-located to museums and private collections, or destroyed. Analysis of rock art use and reuse is therefore crucial to understanding the behaviour, perceptions, and values that have defined places and communities through time. This is the first major research project to focus on British rock art at this scale. Previous studies have concentrated on single sites or regional clusters, creating a fragmented and distorted impression that obscures common themes or variations, and hinders understanding of the wider regional connections and identities suggested by the motifs and their contexts. Furthermore, that the carvings often had a long life beyond the Early Bronze Age has not been considered, despite evidence of deliberate reuse in later structures. Today, rock art in Britain has a low social visibility and value. Studying contemporary attitudes to rock art will reveal how social values are forged through changing awareness, engagement and education, which is vital for future research, heritage management, and community empowerment. Wide-ranging consultation with heritage organisations and community groups has revealed a deep interest in the research, and enthusiasm for cross-sector collaboration. The project builds on our extensive experience of community engagement, rock art visualisation, and research. Working with local communities and heritage bodies across the country, we will produce a comprehensive database of Scotland's rock art, including 3D and 2D digital models, which we will use as a tool for investigating the carvings at local, regional and inter-regional scales. We will integrate the rock art data with archaeological and land-use datasets in a GIS model to enable us to undertake geospatial analysis of the carvings in relation to their placement in the landscape and changing cultural contexts from prehistory to the present day. Carvings will be analysed statistically and added to the GIS model in order to explore regional variability and to determine potential patterning of attributes in relation to specific topographical and cultural features. Historical accounts and local community involvement will inform our understanding of changing perceptions, treatment and social value of rock art. In conclusion, this project will make a major contribution to British and Northern European archaeology, and be an important point of reference for world rock art studies.

At no time has the environment been of greater importance and concern than today, a combination of climatic change, and substantial landscape changes and shrinkage of biodiversity makes the future quite uncertain. Researching past environments has a vital role to play both in terms of identifying external factors and their effect on changing environments, and to chart the long-term effects of the social/economic strategies introduced by humans that both increase and mitigate these changes. This is why Environmental Archaeology is so important because at its heart it examines sustainability over the long term. Environmental Archaeology, the scientific study of plant and animal remains from natural and human derived ancient soils and sediments, is fundamental to our understanding of the historic and prehistoric past. It can also play an increasingly important role in addressing contemporary global challenges, such as food security , providing crucial data on past ecosystems and farming practices, offering detailed case studies of human response and adaptation to climate change. Environmental archaeologists are now actively involved in debates about sustainability, and in the development of policy and strategy for present and future land management, for example through reforestation, rewilding and conservation. Clearly, the importance and potential value of the discipline has never been greater. Yet across the UK, expertise and facilities for environmental archaeology research are diminishing. Alarming gaps in capacity are emerging at regional and local scales and in particular specialisms, such as soils science, zooarchaeology and archaeobotany as well as in more specialist methodologies. Across Scotland in particular, there is a growing demand for expertise in environmental archaeology: in research, commercial and community-driven projects. This is not altogether surprising. Scotland's landscapes are some of the most diverse in the UK, with a rich variety of ecologies, many of them poorly understood and now under increased levels of threat. Possessing the greatest breadth and depth of environmental archaeology expertise in Scotland, the UHI Archaeology Institute has the potential to meet these challenges, but not alone. Currently, the impact of our expertise and resources is constrained by existing facilities. Our aim is that in conjunction with the agency Historic Environment Scotland (HES), and in partnership with Orkney Museums, Glasgow University, Southampton University, Archaeology Scotland and SCAPE Trust, we can create a distributed facility for environmental archaeology. This will comprise a suite of laboratories for processing and analysing biological materials at UHI Orkney and the use of the HES Engine Shed in Stirling - Scotland's hub of digital innovation and heritage science - to provide access to new mobile resources for on-site analytical support, and to create and maintain an integrated network of environmental archaeology specialists across Scotland and the UK. This will be achieved through major upgrades at UHI Orkney, a new facility within Orkney Museum, and a mobile environmental sciences laboratory for deployment in different locales throughout Scotland. Through our partnerships we will support access to additional laboratory resources and equipment in Scotland and across the UK, and utilise a communities of practice approach, including citizen-science, to widening access to heritage science. These facilities will: serve researchers, communities, commercial units and museums in Scotland; provide specialist labs and expertise for the UK; enable access to facilities and collections that capitalise on our research expertise and capacity in environmental archaeology, all with potential global reach.