CAIN (Conflict Archive on the INternet; cain.ulster.ac.uk ) was formed in 1996 with the aim of producing a freely available on-line digital Archive of information and source material on the Northern Ireland conflict and politics in the region.

When it was first funded the CAIN project was targeted at an academic audience and includes: bibliographies; biographies; reading lists; databases; chronologies; and abstracts.

However, while much of the material on CAIN has been contributed by academics there are also important resources that have been generated by people outside this sector. CAIN has been active in encouraging anyone with relevant information, sometimes in the form of unique collections, to make this material available via CAIN. One way of doing this has been to offer individuals and groups ‘Associate Site’ status within CAIN (cain.ulster.ac.uk/associated). Individuals who have been given this status include for example: Malcolm Sutton’s database of deaths; Dr Jonathan McCormick’s Mural Directory; Peter Heathwood’s database of television programmes; and Paul Crispin’s (a former soldier) photographs of the British Army in Belfast. Existing groups with Associate Site status include: The Bogside Artists and the Farset Community Think Tanks Project. Groups which have ceased to exist but whose collections have been preserved on CAIN include: the Centre for the Study of Conflict; the Cost of the Troubles Study; Democratic Dialogue; and Templegrove Action Research Limited.

In addition to this outreach work, since its inception CAIN has also had a significant service element and has for example, answered thousands of emails and phone calls from people all over the world, met with scores of visiting groups, assisted numerous researchers in locating information, and dealt with extensive feedback to the ‘Index of Deaths’ from the relatives of those killed as a result of the conflict.

Originally funded by the Higher Education Funding Councils, CAIN has been supported most recently via fixed-term funding grants from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). CAIN is currently fully funded until October 2011.

On 16 June 2009 CAIN launched a large new digital Archive on Victims, Survivors and Commemoration (cain.ulster.ac.uk/victims/). This new resource includes: source materials produced by a wide range of groups; a large key word indexed bibliography; government policy documents; information on, and by, victims’ groups; a searchable database of information and photographs of physical memorials in public spaces; linked information between monuments and those commemorated; and photographs of an initial selection of victims of the conflict.

CAIN is:
• Long established – began work in January 1996 and available on-line since March 1997.
• Heavily used – 52 million page views to date.
• Content orientated – includes: databases, reports, book extracts, speeches, statements, photographs, papers, guidelines, ephemeral material, abstracts, biographies, glossaries, unpublished items, etc.
• Respected – with overwhelmingly positive feedback (see Web site for accolades).
• Widely used – schoolchildren, community groups, victims groups, victims, survivors, NGOs, print media, broadcast media, teachers, lecturers, researchers, librarians, writers, artists, photographers, private individuals, organisations, agencies, government departments, etc.
• Responsive – thousands of email queries answered; thousands of phone calls answered.
• Influential – hundreds of citations in books, articles, reports, TV programmes, etc.
• Recommended – over 39,000 links to CAIN site.
• Accommodating – 23 ‘Associated Sites’ already based within CAIN.
• Easy to Locate - CAIN ranks very high on Internet search engine outputs.
• Networked - CAIN benefits from its location within ARK and within INCORE.