21 Jun 2022
Commission starts dialogue with Member States to launch Collaborative Cloud for Europe's cultural heritage
The European Commission (EC) is starting a dialogue with Member States on the joint creation of a Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage to help safeguard European cultural treasures through a digital infrastructure. The Cloud aims at fostering cooperation and co-creation among cultural, creative and technology sectors.
With an envisaged budget of €110 million until 2025 from Horizon Europe, the Collaborative Cloud will be a unique infrastructure that will enable unprecedented transdisciplinary and large-scale collaboration between specialists, such as cultural heritage scholars, curators, archivists and conservators. The EC expects the Collaborative Cloud to provide cutting-edge technologies for digitising artefacts, researching artworks, and documenting data, all of which should significantly advance and add a new digital dimension to cultural heritage preservation, conservation, and restoration. It aims to facilitate the access to advanced technologies and remove barriers for smaller and remote institutions.
So far, only 30% to 50% of the cultural collections in Europe have been digitised. The statistics are even lower for three-dimensional representations of large cultural heritage structures and landscapes, the basis for in-depth scientific research. Furthermore, most standards in use are not uniform, traceable or secure, putting Europe's tangible and intangible cultural treasures at risk.
The work has just started, with the EC commissioning an ex-ante impact assessment on the Collaborative Cloud conducted by eight independent experts. The Cloud's development will take place under Horizon Europe, within the cluster “Creativity, Cultural Heritage and Inclusion". The budget earmarked for implementing the structure, services and tools for the Cloud infrastructure is €110 million, with calls for proposals to be launched in 2023 and 2024.
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