The historical archives of the ESF have been transferred from Strasbourg to the HAEU in Florence in October 2015, under the terms of a deposit contract signed between the ESF’s Chief Executive Martin Hynes and the HAEU’s director Dieter Schlenker, on 18 June 2015 and 29 June 2015 respectively.

The historical fonds created at the Historical Archives under the reference code ESF is composed of paper documents dating from 1970 to 2005. They include the Governance documents (General Assembly, Electoral Committee, Board, Executive Board, President and General Secretary and all the Steering Committees of the Scientific Activities) as well as the scientific papers produced by its scientific committees, working groups and programmes. Also included are documents produced prior to the creation of the ESF relating to the history of its foundation.

As of September 2020, the inventory describes 1783 files which correspond to approximately 75 per cent of the documents deposited. The handling and description of files relating to the foundation and governing bodies of the ESF is closed and all documents transferred to Florence are described.

The predominant languages in the files are English and French; however, documents in the national languages of the member Councils are also to be found. The fonds also includes some photographs and a small collection of audio and video tapes produced during various events.
Respecting the existing organisation of the series and the files, the archival arrangement of the fonds formalizes the structure and activities of the foundation and reflects the thematic and chronological criteria. The introductions to the sub-fonds and the series give a short introduction in the powers and functions of the given entity in order to contextualize the files. The descriptions of the files and in particular those produced in the context of the Foundation’s scientific activities detail the research subjects and topics.

The user engages to respect the copyright and intellectual property rights for the photographs and academic papers included in this fonds.

Danish, Dutch, English, French, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish

Photograph, Poster, Textual, Video

Generally very good conservation conditions.