About the
Archive Trust
A charity for scientific heritage
The Archive Trust for Research in Mathematical Sciences and Philosophy (registered charity no. 1141862) was established to support research and teaching in the sciences, with a particular focus on foundational and philosophical questions.
We pursue this aim chiefly by recording and placing online video and audio recordings of research meetings, lecture courses, interviews and panel discussions with leading scientists, and by sponsoring such discussions and meetings.
The collections provide a contemporary snapshot of the debate and discussion involved in the formation of key ideas. These are of unique value to historians and researchers in these fields. Each recording is allied with documentation providing context and commentary — contemporaneous correspondence, notes and handouts — that situates the recordings within the broader history of science.
The Trust is building an online archive to house and provide context and commentary for these collections, which will be made freely available to the research community and other interested parties worldwide.
What we do
Recording
We continue to record new material wherever permission is given and arrangements can be made — especially when the discussions document developments of broadly foundational interest that might otherwise go unrecorded.
Discovery & Conservation
We discover important previously unknown or uncirculated recordings relevant to the exact sciences and their history and philosophy, then conserve them through digitisation and make them available online wherever copyright permits.
Conferences & Workshops
We continue, as funding permits, the programme of conferences, workshops and interviews / rencontres which the Archive has sponsored for over three decades, bringing together researchers from around the world.
Michael Wright Collection
The Michael Wright Collection is the centrepiece of the Archive Trust's holdings. Assembled by Michael Wright over five decades, it comprises 11,500 video and audio recordings of academic lectures, seminars, conferences and informal discussions in mathematics, theoretical physics, cosmology and the philosophy of science.
The recordings span from 1973 to the present day, capturing many of the most significant scientific conversations of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Speakers include Sir Roger Penrose, Stephen Hawking, Sir Michael Atiyah, Edward Witten, Alain Connes, Lee Smolin, and hundreds of other researchers.
The Trust is engaged in a programme of expert digitisation, converting each recording to a 96kHz WAV master and producing MP3 access copies for public online access.
Areas of coverage
The challenges ahead
The Archive Trust is a small charity with a large ambition. The Michael Wright Collection alone comprises 11,500 recordings held on fragile analogue media. Here are the key challenges we are working to address:
Digitisation of analogue media
Our collection includes cassette tapes, minidiscs, DVDs, CDs, floppy discs and older formats. Digitisation must be performed with expert care — the very act could damage fragile material if done incorrectly.
Cataloguing and metadata
Every recording carries metadata: title, speaker, date, subject, duration, format. We are building a comprehensive ISAD(G)-compliant catalogue of all 11,500 items in the Michael Wright Collection.
Digital preservation
WAV master files at 96kHz are stored on NAS with cold-storage backup. We are implementing OAIS-compliant preservation workflows to NDSA levels of digital preservation.
Public access
MP3 access copies are being prepared for open online hosting. The archive will be discoverable through a public-facing catalogue — enabling historians, researchers and anyone with intellectual curiosity to find and listen freely.
Standards & accreditation
We are committed to achieving Archive Service Accreditation and documenting written policies for all aspects of our work — digitisation, preservation, access and GDPR compliance.
"The Archive Trust performs an invaluable service in preserving recordings that would otherwise be lost — primary sources for the history and philosophy of the mathematical sciences."
Lord Martin Rees of Ludlow FRS · Astronomer Royal · Chair of Trustees"The informal discussions and seminars captured in this archive reveal science in the making — the questions, doubts and creative leaps that rarely appear in published papers."
Sir Roger Penrose FRS OM · Former Chair of Trustees