Description PROTAGE addressed the challenges related to the preservation of digital resources of increasing volume and heterogeneity. The solution proposed was to develop tools allowing for more efficiency and self-reliance of preservation processes.For this purpuse, PROTAGE researchers explored the value of a promising technology - software agents - for the automation of digital preservation processes. Based on the latest research on digital preservation strategies and on autonomous systems, the project has built and validated flexible and extensible software agents for long-term digital preservation and access that can cooperate with and be integrated in existing and new preservation systems to support various aspects of the digital preservation workflow such as the submission / ingestion of digital material, monitoring of preservation systems and transfer between repositories. Tools developed by the PROTAGE project will: enable content producers to create and publish in a preservation-compatible manner,provide digital repositories with means of further automating the preservation processes,facilitate seamless interoperation between content providers, libraries and archives, and end-users throughout Europe.Targeted end users are curators and digital content creators, including individuals managing their own digital collections. PROTAGE has used archive and library materials from the project partners for initial system and user tests and material from external stakeholders for further validation. The Swedish Centre of Competence for Long-term Preservation ensures the availability of results to a wider community of memory institutions. The industrial partners have the possibility to use the research results to develop commercial solutions.