DLM Forum Foundation

The DLM Forum Foundation, known as the "DLM Forum" is a pan-European subscription-based community of members from the national archives of European Union Member States and other public and private bodies interested in Information Governance across Europe, and beyond.

Founded with the specific purpose of providing a cross-sector forum our members include both public and private archives, government bodies, universities and research institutes, suppliers, end users, consultants, regulators, industry associations, individuals, students and partner organisations. The DLM Forum works closely with the European Commission and the European Archives Group and an observer from the European Commission attends DLM Forum Executive Committee meetings.

From 2010 the DLM Forum has been a not-for-profit foundation. It is registered with the Registrar of Companies for England and Wales and has company number 7141822.

If you would like to contact the DLM Forum for any reason, or take part in any of the DLM Forum's activities, or if you have any feedback or suggestions then we are keen to hear from you.  Please use the contact form here or email the This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Information about joining the DLM Forum may be found in our members area.

History and traditions

The DLM Forum was created though an initiative of the European Commission in 1994 with support from the public archives of European Union member states.  Until 2002 the DLM Forum was an inter-disciplinary cooperative effort led by the EU member states and the European Commission.  Subsequently, the DLM Forum has evolved to become a wider community of interested parties in archive, records, document and information lifecycle management throughout Europe.

From the third triennial conference in Barcelona in 2002 the DLM Forum has been an independent body and attracted members from both the public and private sector. It now includes many diverse representatives from across the Information Governance industry.  The DLM Forum is well established as an influential European centre, setting Information Governance standards and guidelines. Its activities are not restricted to Europe alone and it also liaises closely with many international associations and organisations in all parts of the world.

The acronym "DLM" means "Document Lifecyle Management"

Until 2002 it stood for the French “Données Lisible par Machine” (in English "Machine Readable Data")

You can download a more complete history (circa 2009) of the DLM Forum and MoReq by Jef Schram of the European Commisssion in PDF format from the Foundation downloads

The first DLM Forum meeting was held in 1996 and the second in 1999.  Both these meetings were hosted by the European Commission in Brussels and established the tradition of a large triennial conference.  The DLM Forum now meets for a two day members meeting twice a year (in spring and autumn), with a longer three day forum in place of one of the members meetings every third year.  Meetings are traditionally hosted by whichever European country holds the current EU presidency.

Meetings and conferences

The last biannual members meeting was in Copenhagen, Denmark in May/June 2012.

The next members meeting will be held in Zagreb, Croatia on 15th and 16th November 2012.

The most recent triennial conference was in Brussels, Belgium in December 2011.

The next triennial conference is due in 2014.

MoReq2010

In 2001 the DLM Forum published the European standard MoReq, Model Requirements for the Management of Electronic Records. MoReq quickly became established as the pan-European records management specification. Following a 2005 scoping study, MoReq2 was published in 2008 and for the first time included a testing programme and certified compliance.

The latest edition of the DLM Forum's records management specification is MoReq2010 which represents a significant step forward in records management standards. Now entitled, Modular Requirements for Records Systems, the MoReq2010 specification takes a flexible and adaptive approach based on a common set of core services. You can learn more about MoReq2010 here.

MoReq2010 is managed, and future versions and extensions are planned and developed, by the MoReq Governance Board, a sub-committee of the DLM Forum.