Organisation 

The composition of the ARCHON board changed slightly in 2022. Prof. Daan Raemaekers stepped down as chair of the ARCHON board in September 2022 and was succeeded by Prof. Lidewijde de Jong as representative of the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. Prof. Jan Kolen and Prof. Jan Paul Crielaard have acted as co-chairs of the ARCHON board since then. Utrecht University joined ARCHON as participating institution in April 2022 with Prof. Leonard Rutgers as its board representative. The board has also decided on the 7th of November 2022 to welcome Saxion University of Applied Science as an affiliated institute. A cooperation agreement is in the making.  

The Steering Committee has also seen some changes (see the table below).  

Institution	Left	Joined
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen	Prof. Lidewijde de Jong	dr. Anna Moles
	Safoora Kamjan (PhD)	Ana Smuk (PhD)
Leiden University	Bjørn P. Bartholdy (PhD)	Lasse van den Dikkenberg (PhD)
	Myrthe Sassen (RMA)	Tullio Abruzzese (RMA)
Utrecht University	–	dr. Saskia Stevens
	–	Kadir Toykan Özdoğan (PhD)
	–	Stefan Dingemans (RMA)

Members 

In total, 116 staff members from the six archaeology departments at the RUG, LU, VU, UvA, RU and UU are linked to ARCHON. Currently, ARCHON has 38 PhD members that registered themselves between 2018 and 2022. In 2022, 10 new PhD candidates subscribed as ARCHON member. The number of RMA members (registered in 2021 and 2022) is now 44, of which 20 subscribed as ARCHON member in 2022. 

Curriculum 

The educational activities offered in 2022 are listed in the overview below in chronologic order. These activities are divided into ‘ARCHON (skill) courses’, ‘ARCHON continuous courses’ and ‘symposia and conferences supported by ARCHON’. The credits that could be obtained are listed behind each event. 

ARCHON (skill) courses 

• How to become a PhD – 17 February 2022 (2 EC) 
• ARCHON Symposium & Masterclass ‘Week van de Klassieken’ – 11 March 2022 (1 EC) – cancelled 
• Global Geoarchaeology: theory and practice – 3-5 March 2021 (2 EC) – cancelled 
• Publishing for Early Career Researchers – 12 May 2022 (1 EC) 
• Introduction course Photography for Archaeologists – 30 & 31 May (1 EC) 
• ARCHON conference: Pathways to the Present – 3 June 2022 (1 EC) 
• Lidar Workshop – 16 & 17 June 2022 (1 EC)  
• How to get a Postdoc – 30 June 2022 (1 EC) 
• ARCHON Day 2022 – 28 October 2022 (2 EC) 
• Data Management for Archaeologists – 2 December 2022 (1 EC) 

ARCHON Continuous Courses 

• Online ArcGIS course 2022 – continuous tutorial (1 EC) 
• Online QGIS course 2022 – continuous tutorial (1 EC) 
• Online Working with databases 2022 – continuous tutorial (1 EC) 
• Online RCHON statistics course 2022 – continuous tutorial (1 EC) 
• Online Drone Archaeology course 2022 – continuous tutorial (1 EC) 

Events supported by ARCHON 

• Workshop: Developments in Mortuary Archaeology – 20 January 2022 (1 EC) 
• Steentijddag 2022 – 5 February 2022 (1 EC) 
• Week van de Klassieken Q&A – 22 February 2022 (1 EC) 
• CRASIS Annual Meeting & Masterclass 2022 – 24 & 25 February 2022 (2 EC) 
• DUSANE Dutch Symposium of the Ancient Near East 2022 – 14 April 2022 (1 EC) 
• Digging Archaeology through Social Media – 20 & 21 April 2022 (2 EC) 
• Conference: the Impact of Rome in the East – 22 April 2022 (1 EC)  
• NASTA 2022 – 20 May 2022 (1 EC) 
• ARCHON workshop on palynology – 20 May 2022 (1 EC) 
• Funnel Beaker junior conference – 13 June 2022 (1 EC) 
• Metaaltijdendag 2022 – 16 & 17 September 2022 (1 EC) 
• Annual workshop of Mortuary Studies: ethics and diversity – 17 November 2022 (1 EC) 
• Reuvensdagen 2022 – 17 & 18 November 2022 (1 EC) 
• Moving Materiality Forward – 15 December 2022 (2 EC) 
• Romeinensymposium 2022 – 16 December 2022 (1 EC) 

The total number of ECT credits offered in 2022 was 36. 

Current endeavours  

Zwaartekracht application 

The board wants ARCHON to focus more on vertical integration, allowing junior researchers to connect with postdocs and permanent staff members. In the future, the research school could act as a connecting unit between researchers from various research projects at the affiliated universities. In the course of 2021, the ARCHON board made preparations for submitting a Zwaartekracht application with NWO, which should become the driving force for broad collaboration between universities. The chosen theme is ‘Pathways to the Present. Archaeology as a Lens for Understanding the Deep History of Environmental and Societal Resilience’. A call was issued within the archaeological field to come up with ideas, which were discussed at a symposium on June 3, 2022. The outcomes of this meeting will be used for further preparation of the application procedure.  

Evaluation Heritage Act 

In 2022, the ARCHON board further committed itself to promoting the importance of scientific norms and values in the Dutch archaeological system, following the announced evaluation of the Heritage Act (de Erfgoedwet). The chairman of ARCHON, Prof. Daan Raemaekers, joined the advisory committee of the Council of Culture (Raad van Cultuur). The resulting advice to the State Secretary has led to the establishment of a so-called Innovation Fund (het Innovatiefonds) for archaeology, which will create space for carrying out innovative scientific research within the context of the archaeological heritage management system. ARCHON wants to play a coordinating and connecting role in this. 

Raised subsidies 

Given the rising prices, the ARCHON board decided at the end of 2022 to raise the subsidies. The conference subsidy has been raised from 400 euros to 500 euros and the event subsidy has been raised from 1000 euros to a maximum of 1200 euros. 

Website and Social Media 

ARCHON’s reach on Facebook has grown from 807 followers to 897 followers in 2022. The number of likes has grown from 770 to 830. We are also active on Twitter, where we have gone from 306 to 372 followers. Since the end of April 2022, we have also created a LinkedIn page for ARCHON, because we have the impression that our target group does not (always) use Facebook anymore. The counter currently stands at 163 followers. An email is sent approximately every month via our mailing list, where we have grown from 426 to 747 subscribers. However, this also includes spam accounts. 

Outlook on the future for ARCHON 

ARCHON continues to focus on strengthening its function as a platform for academic debate. It is important to us that students and researchers from different educational institutions are aware of each other’s work and research interests. In order to better implement this, the ARCHON board has decided to set up an Advisory Board that can provide the board with solicited and unsolicited advice on themes that affect the entire academic field. The Advisory Board  will be composed of relatively young researchers from the participating institutes, and will consider, among other things, a new mission statement and how support within the academic community can be increased. 

In 2023, ARCHON will continue to work for the synthesis between academic and contract-based archaeology, because there is a great need for scientific expertise in the archaeological system in the Netherlands. In this con text, ARCHON is organizing a conference in May 2023 in which the problem of disappearing specializations at universities will be the subject of discussion: How can we guarantee that specific scientific expertise remains available at universities, both for research and for education? 

ARCHON’s representation in various national bodies also remains a point of attention. Due to the departure of Prof. Daan Raemaekers from the board, ARCHON is confronted by a gap in the professional network for which a solution will have to be found at short notice.