Anton Vatcharadze, coordinator of the project Openness of State Archives in Former Soviet Republics participated in the 4^th Croatia ICARUS days & EURBICA Conference. The tagline of the event was European Archival Landscape: Reaching out for New Horizons.

The event was organized by the International Council on Archives (ICA) and was included in the ICA 2018 calendar (https://www.ica.org/en/events). The organizers of the project were: ICARUS Hrvatska with the consortium ICARUS (International Center for Archival Research), State Archives in Split, and EURBICA (ICA European Regional Branch). Participants represented international organizations, national archives and museums of various countries, universities and other academic institutions.

In addition to the official part of the event, it offered opportunities for professional networking, visits to archives and time to discuss ongoing and future collaboration opportunities with representatives of major actors in the European archival field.

The main topics presented and discussed at the conference were preservation, protection and current archival projects and programs across Europe and ongoing joint activities. The presentations and discussion covered all of the major problems and challenges that archives, archival projects and archival scientists currently face.

The project – Openness of State Archives in Former Soviet Republics deals with the main problems researchers/citizens face while applying to archives in this region. These problems connect to wider range of challenges faced by modern societies and NGOs, ranging fromtransparency and freedom of information to human rights and rehabilitation of victims of Soviet totalitarian regimes. 

At the conference Anton Vatcharadze presented and discussed a unique methodology for evaluating State Archives that was developed by IDFI. Many notable scholars and archival officials: among them Deborah Jenkins from International Council of Archives (ICA), Thomas Aigner, president of International Centre for Archival Research (ICARUS), Dr. Charles Farrugia, National Archivist of Malta, elected president of ICA for 2019-2020 and other officials who are main actors in this field got acquainted with the project and expressed interest for future collaboration with IDFI in this project.