News
The Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust (FMHT) is delighted to announce that it has won the Delivering Innovation category at the 2026 Esri UK Customer Success Awards, recognising the Trust’s pioneering use of GIS technology to document and protect the wreck of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance.
The award celebrates FMHT’s development of an innovative ArcGIS Online platform that brings together the vast and highly complex datasets collected during the Endurance22 expedition into a single, accessible digital environment.
As one of the most remote and inaccessible heritage sites on Earth, Endurance presents unique challenges for researchers. Located more than 3,000 metres beneath the surface of the Weddell Sea, opportunities to revisit the wreck are rare, making it essential that the data gathered during the expedition remains available for future generations of researchers, historians and maritime archaeologists.
Digital 3D scan of Endurance
Working in partnership with Deep Ocean Search and Esri, FMHT has created a shared digital platform that integrates high-resolution sonar imagery, multibeam bathymetry, photogrammetry, lidar laser scanning, archaeological records and environmental datasets. The result is a permanent digital research environment that will enable users to explore, analyse and revisit the wreck site.
The project required a completely new approach to managing and presenting deep-ocean heritage data and has become an exemplar of how spatial technologies can be used to preserve and study underwater cultural heritage.
FMHT would like to thank Deep Ocean Search Ltd., Esri, Pierre Le Gall, Nicolas Vincent, Marina Annabel Rupp, and the entire Endurance22 team whose expertise, dedication and collaboration made this achievement possible.
Representing the Trust at the awards ceremony in London were FMHT Chief Operating Officer Elena Lewendon and Chair of Trustees Saul Pitaluga.
The Esri UK Customer Success Awards celebrate organisations that are using GIS technology to deliver innovation, insight and real-world impact. FMHT is honoured to have received this national recognition and looks forward to continuing to develop the Endurance digital platform as a resource for research, education and heritage preservation.
