Horizon Europe: A European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage

Expected Outcome 

Projects should contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• The ECCCH is established as a legal entity, which serves as a Single Entry Point^[1] (SEP) and managing body, and is supported by an external independent advisory board that assesses and advises on the technical robustness, effectiveness and usability of the ECCCH platform, its tools and services.
• The European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage (ECCCH) enhances the ability of cultural heritage actors to interact across disciplinary, institutional, sectorial and political boundaries and cooperate effectively in advancing research on cultural heritage and in developing innovative solutions for the discovery, recovery, conservation, digitalisation and valorisation of digital, digitised and digitisable cultural heritage objects^[2]. This might also facilitate the prevention of illicit trafficking of cultural heritage objects^[3].
• Cultural heritage institutions, curators, conservators, researchers, art managers, educators, other cultural heritage professionals and potential users in Europe are aware of, have access to and use the ECCCH platform, its tools and services for the study, digitisation, conservation, valorisation and access to cultural heritage artefacts and related data, in particular for the sharing and preservation of such data, and are involved in its validation and assessment, in view of continuously improving the ECCCH’s performance and use.
• Cultural heritage institutions, curators, conservators, researchers, art managers, educators and other cultural heritage professionals apply new working approaches to collaborate across geographic, cultural, and political borders within Europe (and beyond), develop new business models to manage and valorise intellectual property related to cultural heritage artefacts and their digital twins, and unleash the full potential of a digitally enabled cultural heritage ecosystem connecting cultural heritage actors, activities and objects.
• The governance and management of the ECCCH is widely accepted, trusted and supported by stakeholders at European, national, regional and local level, in particular by Member States, and its sustainability at legal, technical, financial, human resources and scientific level is ensured.
• Participants of past and ongoing EU-funded initiatives, activities and networks are invited to cooperate with the ECCCH-related actions and to contribute with data to the ECCCH and testing of ECCCH tools.

Scope

This topic aims at designing and establishing a European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage (ECCCH) and demonstrating its basic capacities.

The cultural heritage sector is in the middle of a digital transition: digital technologies are revolutionising existing workflows, procedures and practices. To support this transition and further enhance research and innovation collaboration and activities in the field, the action should extend and improve the availability of sophisticated digital instruments and provide a platform for data exchange and collaboration to the cultural heritage sector. It should fulfil the requirements of the practitioners in the field by being inclusive, collaborative, interactive, safe, fidelity- and equality-based, and providing open access.

The overall goal is to define, extend and accelerate the development of a platform for multidisciplinary and multi-sectoral collaboration on cultural heritage, focusing on users’ requirements and ease of use, as well as underpinning an open digital ecosystem that provides the tools and services needed to enable and scale-up future research and innovation in the field.

The initial focus is on the design and implementation of the basic architecture and governance of the ECCCH. The design and implementation of the ECCCH should be driven by the needs of its users: The professionals with various disciplinary background working on cultural heritage and in related sectors. The governance body of the effort therefore should include a wide representation from the European cultural heritage sector, research organisations, other related initiatives and from Member States and Associated Countries.

Deadline: 21 September 2023

More information: Funding and Tenders