By Lasse Brandt Fredsager, AAU Communication and Public Affairs

Associate Professor Marianne Rostgaard from the Department of Politics and Society has received a grant of DKK 3,168,000 from the Independent Research Fund Denmark, Culture and Communication for the research project Archiving and recordkeeping from a child- and user-centered perspective. The project is carried out in collaboration with the Danish National Archives and runs from 1 January 2026 to 30 April 2029.

The aim of the project is to explore how archiving and recordkeeping can be developed based on the needs of children and users, rather than solely from the perspective of public authorities. For children who have been placed in care, access to their own case files can be crucial in understanding and processing their childhood. The way documents are preserved, organized, and made accessible plays a major role in how this access is experienced.

Traditionally, Danish archives have focused on preserving the documents produced by public casework and on the technical preservation of digital records. Based on the international paradigm Child-centered recordkeeping and archiving, the project seeks to reverse this perspective: What is important to preserve, and how – when seen from the child’s point of view?

The project will analyse how the documents most relevant from the children’s perspective are preserved in digital systems that form the basis for archiving, examine the impact of digital archiving versions on retrieval and accessibility of data, and analyse the implications of how access is provided. Although the project takes its point of departure in child-related cases, the principles developed have the potential to influence all types of cases where welfare-state institutions intervene in citizens’ lives in life-changing ways.