PARSE.Insight is a two-year project co-funded by the European Union under the Seventh Framework Programme. It is concerned with the preservation of digital information in science, from primary data through analysis to the final publications resulting from the research. The problem is how to safeguard this valuable digital material over time, to ensure that it is accessible, usable and understandable in future. The rapid pace of change in information technology threatens media, file formats and software with obsolescence, and changing concepts and terminology also mean that, even if data can be read, it might not be correctly interpreted by future generations.

Many initiatives are already under way in this area, and the aim of the PARSE.Insight project is to develop a roadmap and recommendations for developing the e-infrastructure in order to maintain the long-term accessibility and usability of scientific digital information in Europe. The project will conduct surveys and in-depth case studies of different scientific disciplines and stakeholders and will base its results on these findings, as well as knowledge of ongoing developments.

PARSE.Insight is closely linked to the Alliance for Permanent Access to the Records of Science. The output from the project is intended to guide the European Commission's strategy about research infrastructure.

PARSE.Insight has published their results of several surveys undertaken to enlight the current state of affair of digital preservation in research. The surveys were targeted to three main stakeholders in science: researchers, data managers and publishers. These results are now wrapped up in a report and gives an in-depth view on preservation of research data. Furthermore, a cross analysis has been done amongst the stakeholders. The report is now available: download survey report.

Later on, the graphs that were used in this report will become available separately as well.