IDP Timeline

page mounted: 1/12/05 page last updated: 4/1/08

2007

Opening of IDP Centre at Dunhuang following award by Ford Foundation China for an eighteen-month grant to work together on digitisation and education programmes.
Completion of digitisation of over 4000 Sanskrit fragments in collaboration with IRIAB and an international team of scholars. Catalogues to come online in 2008.
IDP team digitises manuscripts at the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, Princeton University Art Museum and Princeton East Asian Library under a grant by the American Trust for the British Library.
Seventh IDP Conservation Conference held in London funded by the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation.
Second Ford Foundation Symposium held at the Institute of Oriental Studies, St Petersburg and web resource goes online.
Expansion of IDP China in Beijing, installation of new equipment and training of new staff.

New award by the Sino-British Fellowship Trust to enable expansion of the IDP Studio at the National Library of China in Beijing.
First Ford Foundation Symposium held at the National Library of China and web resource goes online.
Catalogue of the British Museum Dunhuang paintings by Professor Whitfield translated into Chinese and marked up. Goes online in English and Chinese.
The Mellon Foundation awards a new grant to BnF to complete the catalogue of Tibetan manuscripts from Dunhuang.
Restructuring of IDP (see IDP News 27).

Redesign and relaunch of IDP interactive web database in English, Chinese, Russian, Japanese and German.
Launch of the IDP Educational Resource 'Buddhism in Central Asia' at completion of three-year project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Award of a five-year grant by the Pidem Fund for IDP's work.
Opening of IDP Centre in Berlin.
Research grant from the Leverhulme Trust for a three-year project: 'The Palaeography of Chinese and Tibetan Manuscripts from Dunhuang'.
Sixth IDP Conservation Conference held in Beijing (papers published 2007).

Exhibition, 'The Silk Road: Trade, Travel, War and Faith' is visited by 155,000 people.
Opening of IDP Centres in St. Petersburg and Kyoto.

British Museum Dunhuang paintings go online on IDP.
IDP Conservation Day as part of the conference 'Cultures of the Silk Road and Modern Science Conference in commemoration of the Otani Mission to Central Asia' held in Kyoto.
Grants awarded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange for establishing a digitisation and cataloguing centre in Russia.

Work starts on a three-year collaborative project with the School of Oriental and African Studies to catalogue and digitise the Tibetan tantric manuscripts from Dunhuang funded by a grant from the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Fifth Conservation Conference held in Stockholm (see IDP News 22/23).
Launch of Chinese version of the IDP Interactive Web Database hosted by National Library of China (NLC).

Start of a 5-year collaboration between the British Library and the National Library of China (NLC) funded by the Sino-British Fellowship Trust to catalogue and digitise the manuscripts at the NLC.
Start of a four-year project funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to digitise all the manuscripts from Dunhuang in Paris at the BnF along with the paintings, sculptures, textiles, photographs, and Paul Pelliot’s paper archive at the Musée Guimet, representing 40,000 images.
Start of a project funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to digitise over 4,000 Chinese manuscripts from Dunhuang in London, representing 35,000 images.
Specialist IDP Digitisation Studio established with three photographers and two Photoshop operators. Part-time Administrative Manager also joins team.

Launch of the IDP Map Interface on the web.
Support from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) for an IDP Digitisation and Network Manager.

Third full-time member of staff to work on cataloguing and digitisation of Tibetan manuscripts as part of HLMF project.
Fourth Conservation Conference held in St. Petersburg (for proceedings see IDP News 14).

Extension of the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation (CCK) grant for a further year.
2nd full-time member of staff starts work on digitisation of fragments from Stein's 3rd expedition.
3rd Conservation Conference held in Berlin (see IDP News 11).
Launch of IDP Interactive Web Database containing details of over 20,000 manuscripts and over 1,000 images.

Extension of the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation (CCK) grant for a further year.
International conference on Dunhuang forgeries held in London. See IDP News 8/9 and publications.
IDP Symposium at ICANAS, Budapest.
Successful application to the Heritage Lottery Memorial Fund (HLMF) for a 3-year grant to digitise and catalogue Dunhuang manuscripts.

British Academy grant to employ a part-time research assistant to input cataloguing data.
2nd Conservation Conference held in Paris. See IDP News 5 and publications.

IDP database designed and in use.
Sponsorship agreement with UK suppliers of 4D database for software and consultancy over two years.
IDP and consultant start work on designing and implementing database.

IDP founded following 3-year grant from the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation (CCK). One member of staff.
First issue of IDP News.

Inaugural conference bringing together conservators and curators of Dunhuang and Eastern Silk Road material from all the major holding institutions. Everyone resolves to work together to conserve and increase access to the collections through international collaboration. The papers are prepared for publication.