Sound collections in European radio were largely formed in national institutions. We posit that the first decades of radio collections – invested with political, cultural and economic value – offers a rich case. A comparative analysis of radio collections between 1930-1960 – focussing on radio collections in Western and Central/Eastern Europe – will test this thesis and reveal dominant patterns in the storage, circulation and valorisation of early radio recordings across Europe. 

The insights from this project will contribute directly to the understanding of radio archival collections today by providing a historical perspective on cultural collections during and after war, and offering a novel approach for how to map transnational dynamics of collections in a comparative European framework.