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Tracking the growth of MEAP
MEAP experienced a year of tremendous growth in 2025. As we look ahead to the work of 2026, we want to first look back and mark the ways the program continues to expand, supporting cultural heritage preservation in new countries, watching networks build across regions, and creating access to global knowledge that sparks new ways of understanding the world around us.
Record Number of Applications
MEAP received a record-breaking 250 applications in response to this year’s funding call (opens in a new tab)looking to preserve collections in 76 countries. This application pool reflects a 33% increase from the previous year and a 155% increase over two years. The growth in MEAP applications suggests there is an increased need for cultural heritage preservation funding around the world as communities seek opportunities to document and safeguard images, documents, videos, audio materials, and other archival materials.
Newly published resources, including the robust MEAP Digital Projects Guide, helped applicants strengthen their proposals and define workflows to future digitization.
In 2026, MEAP will review all submitted Detailed Applications and select projects to fund for our 8th cohort of grantees. A new Call for Applications(opens in a new tab) will open in September 2026 and we anticipate a growing number of applications.
Expanded Publication
In July 2025, MEAP celebrated the publication of more than 100,000 unique digital objects(opens in a new tab). Over seven years, MEAP has supported the creation of digital collections and affirmed our commitment to open global access by publishing collections on the UCLA Library Digital Collections site. The number of unique digital objects now surpasses 110,000 from 55 different collections and 30 countries.
In 2025, MEAP Published:
- 22,215 digital objects, including photographs, documents, letters, manuscripts, moving image files, and audio recordings
- 206,694 individual files (pages)
- 28 different collections
- Materials that document dozens of different languages
Connecting MEAP collections through the UCLA Digital Library allows users around the world to track photography across continents, document Human Rights organizations in numerous countries, hear voices and watch moving images from South America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe. Newly published collections expand global stories and encourage new ways of understanding the past.
Amplifying Voices and Stories
MEAP remains committed to promoting use of all MEAP collections and highlighting the work of grantees around the world. Towards that end, MEAP launched a new Wikipedia initiative in 2025, enhancing Wikipedia articles related to collection materials. Collections digitized with MEAP funds help support knowledge and learning related to a broad number of topics.
Links to MEAP collections now augment articles about the following people, movements, events, languages, and topics. Additional articles also link to MEAP collections, ensuring that digital collections are found and part of global knowledge making.