Events

Conference & AGM

2026 AGM

Join us for the Business Archives Council of Scotland’s 67th Annual General Meeting (AGM) at the iconic Falkirk Wheel — the world’s only rotating boat lift — on Thursday 28 May, 10:30–13:00. It will feature two engaging talks from Scottish Canals professionals, exploring the intersection of records, heritage, and placemaking. The event concludes with an optional boat ride on the Falkirk Wheel.

Book your place here via Eventbrite. Attendance for the AGM and talks is free and open to all. There is a £5 charge for the optional ride on the Falkirk Wheel (usually £17.95).

The AGM is an opportunity to join the Executive Committee if you’re interested in shaping the work of the BACS. It is an exciting time to join the committee as we’re about to launch a small number of micro-grants and are planning the Autumn conference in Edinburgh. If you are interested please contact the Executive Committee with your name and contact details, whether you are a current BACS member and if you’re interested in a particular role or joining as an executive officer.

Anyone requiring further information about joining the Executive Committee should contact us by email (businessarchivesscotland @ gmail.com) no later than Wednesday 20 May 2026. We would be happy to set up a call to discuss this or you are welcome to reach out to any members of the current Executive Committee.  

• 2026 AGM Agenda
• 2025 AGM Minutes
• 2026 Annual Report & Accounts

2026 Conference

The Business Archives Council of Scotland and the Business Archives Council are pleased to share that our 2026 conference will be held in Edinburgh. The conference hosted by Diageo will take place on Thursday 12th November 2026 at their Johnnie Walker Experience with online attendance also available.

Our call for papers is now live and we look forward to receiving your proposals on the theme of The Perfect Blend: celebrating partnerships and collaborations in Business Archives. This conference theme will explore how good partnerships and collaborations can help transform our business archive collections. This might be through the use of new technologies or volunteering projects to assist with cataloguing and digitisation projects. Or research based collaborations that can unlock collections and engage new audiences with our material.

Key dates:

• 15th June – call for papers deadline
• August – bookings will open
• 30th September – bursary deadline (bursaries will open once bookings are live)
• 12th November – conference

Conference Bursaries

The Business Archives Council of Scotland and the Business Archives Council make up to four bursaries available to attend their joint conference every year. These bursaries are open to members and non-members of the BAC and BACS. Applicants for the bursaries needed to meet one of the following criteria:

• Be a student or
• Be a recent graduate (in the last 3 years ie graduated by July 2023) or
• Be a qualified archivist, currently out-of-employment (this excludes consultants and freelancers) or
• Be retired from the archives profession or retired with an interest in business history

The bursary covers full conference attendance, including up to £150 for travel & accommodation expenses (receipts will be required ahead of reimbursement.) The following should also be noted:

• Applicants must confirm that any costs they claim will not be paid by their employer, and that their employer has not already registered them as a delegate at the Conferences.
• Successful applicants will be asked to provide a short report on their experience at the conference to be used in various BAC & BACS communications and encouraged to contribute to the reporting of the conference through social media while the conference is taking place.

Business Bites

Since 2023, the Business Archives Council of Scotland and the Business Archives Council have presented a joint programme of regular online webinars on subjects related to Business Archives.

Business Bites is the name of this initiative to encourage conversations, bringing together the small community of business archivists and custodians of business archives across the UK, many of whom work alone, to share our experiences.

Business Archive Hackathons

Our second Business Bites session of 2026 is will take place on Tuesday 28th April. Book your spot here.

Theme: Business Archive Hackathons
Where: Online – via Zoom
When: 28th April 2026, 12.30 – 13.30

What can a hackathon—a format more commonly associated with technology and computer science—offer to business archives?

Join Dr Hannah-Louise Clark (University of Glasgow) as she shares insights from Global History Hackathons, an innovative project showing how collaborative, fast-paced hackathon methods can open up new ways of exploring global and business history through local archives and museum collections.

Dr Clark will also introduce the Global History Hackathon Playbook, a practical resource for archivists and custodians looking to experiment with new forms of engagement and discovery.

In 2026, BAC and BACS intend to use this methodology with business archive collections to explore its potential to foster academic and archivist collaborations. Claire Tunstall of Unilever Archives & Records Management will share plans for the first of these hackathons which will take place in Port Sunlight in July.

This initiative came out of our Academics/Archivists workshop at the York conference which Alix Green, University of Essex and Kiara King, The Ballast Trust organised. Hackathons were identified as one of the next steps to explore ways to encourage and facilitate collaboration between Archivists and Academics. This focus on collaborative working will build on the work BAC undertook in 2019 to prepare the guide Facilitating Academic-Archivist Collaborations in Business. The three next steps identified at the workshop were:

• Putting together some template documentation e.g. on non-disclosure agreements and ethical frameworks for oral histories to help make the administration easier.
• Experiment with archives ‘hackathons’ to boost engagement with business archives and find new stories and opportunities in collections (involving a range of audiences).
• A match-making service on Linked-In so archives and academics can post project ideas and find each otherExperiment with archives ‘hackathons’ to boost engagement with business archives and find new stories and opportunities in collections (involving a range of audiences).

We’re delighted to have Hannah Louise Clark share her experience of leading the Global History Hackers project and hear plans from Claire Tunstall for the first BAC/BACS hackathon. If other archives are interested in hosting a hackathon then please get in touch with either Kiara or Alix.

Book your free place to attend here.

Business Bites

In 2023, the Business Archives Council of Scotland and the Business Archives Council joined forces to present a joint programme of regular online webinars on subjects related to Business Archives. Business Bites is the name of this initiative to encourage conversations, bringing together the small community of business archivists and custodians of business archives across the UK, many of whom work alone, to share our experiences.

These will continue throughout 2026 and we will hold a Business Bites event every two months with the first event in February on Strengthening Data Protection in Cultural Collections: The London Library’s Audit with Naomi Korn Associates. The full programme will be shared below once confirmed. All Business Bites sessions are held on the last Wednesday of the month.

This new partnership means that our online events will be a mixture of member only events with at least 50% of events still open to all. Normally our regular in-person events are for BACS members who are business archivists or custodians of business archive collections. Not a BACS member already? Come along to see what BACS has to offer and become a member! (Annual membership starts from £10 for an Individual Member, £20 for Organisational Membership, £50 for Corporate Membership).

Corporate Connections‌

Corporate Connections was an initiative launched by BACS in 2017 (and which ran to 2023) to encourage face to face conversations, bringing together the small community of business archivists and custodians of business archives in Scotland, many of whom work alone to share our experiences. Regular social meet ups were held twice a year, with a rotating theme to kick start conversations and let you meet your peers. Anything and everything business archives was openly discussed among friends. From 2020, due to Covid-19 lockdown restrictions, our Corporate Connections events moved online. The BACS team invited those with an interest in business archives to these informal online talks where current challenges, successes and ideas were shared over virtual tea and biscuits (to be provided by the attendees!)