Digital preservation is a significant challenge for cultural heritage institutions and other repositories of digital information resources. The challenges of long-term access issues are multifaceted, often requires a mixture of approaches. The Preservation Metadata Implementation Strategies (PREMIS) has been extremely influential on providing a “core” set of preservation metadata elements that support the digital preservation process. However, there is no evidence, in the form of previous research, as to what factors explain and predict the level of adoption of PREMIS. This paper will present some preliminary result on factors that affect the adoption of PREMIS in cultural heritage institutions. The study employed a web-based survey to collect data from 123 participants in 20 country as well as a semi-structured, follow-up telephone interview with a smaller sample of the survey respondents. Roger's diffusion of innovation theory was used as a theoretical framework. The main constructs considered for the study were relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, observability, and institution readiness. The study yielded both qualitative and quantitative data, and preliminary analysis showed that all six factors influence the adoption of PREMIS in varying degrees.