Dr Roeland Paardekooper

As one of the founders of EXARC in 2001, the network remains a source of inspiration and welcome international experience besides my other activities. In 2004 I took up a job at the Eindhoven Museum, the Netherlands, the place I grew up at. With that, I was the first archaeologist in the museum. In 2006 I moved on, to coordinate the European project liveARCH. I used the six museums in this project as case studies for my PhD project at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom. This resulted in the first book on the use of archaeological open-air museums. After the success of liveARCH, I (co-)authored several other EU cooperation projects, all aimed at the professionalization of museums. I carried out these projects as manager, sometimes also as social media coordinator. I proved to be both a diplomatic scientist and a realistic manager. In the years 2013 - 2016, I successfully implemented my thoughts on how to run an archaeological open-air museum in Oerlinghausen, Germany. From 2021 - 2023, I was a director at the Middelaldercentret, Denmark, quite a challenge in the aftermath of the Corona Pandemic and the first year of the War in Ukraine. In 2024 I moved to Gotha, Germany where I started to work on The Gotha Transdigital Project aiming to develop the foundation into a digitally competent cultural institution and to open the collections for the digital space.