- Posted 15-Nov-2021
Commission proposes a common European data space for cultural heritage
The European Commission has published a recommendation on a common European data space for cultural heritage. The aim is to accelerate the digitisation of cultural heritage assets.
The objectives
The Commission recommends Member States to accelerate the digitisation of all cultural heritage monuments and sites, objects and artefacts for future generations, to protect and preserve those at risk, and boost their reuse in domains such as education, sustainable tourism and cultural creative sectors.
The Commission encourages Member States to digitise by 2030 all monuments and sites that are at risk of degradation and half of those highly frequented by tourists.
This recommendation will contribute to the objectives of the Digital Decade by fostering a secure and sustainable digital infrastructure, digital skills and uptake of technologies by businesses, in particular SMEs.
What will be the data space?
Europeana, the European digital cultural platform, will be at the basis for building the common data space for cultural heritage. It will allow museums, galleries, libraries, archives across Europe to share and reuse the digitised cultural heritage images such as 3D models of historical sites and high quality scans of paintings.
How the implementation will be monitored?
Member States should inform the Commission 24 months from the publication of this Recommendation, and every 2 years thereafter, of actions taken in response to the Recommendation. A newly formed Commission Expert Group on the common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage will monitor the progress of the implementation of the recommendation. Its members are appointed representatives from all Member States.
Background
This recommendation follows the evaluation of the previous recommendation on online accessibility of cultural material and digital preservation (2011/711/EU).
As announced in the European strategy for data, the Commission will develop and fund other data spaces in key strategy sectors and areas of public interest, such as health, agriculture or manufacturing.
Cultural heritage factfile
- Cultural tourism represents up to 40% of all tourism in Europe;
- Cultural and creative industries contribute 3.95% of total EU value added (€477 billion);
- More than 8 million people are employed by the cultural and creative industries, through 1.2 million firms - 99.9% of which are SMEs;
- Europeana currently offers access to 52 million cultural heritage assets, 45% of which can be reused in various sectors;
- Images and text make up 97.5% of Europeana's assets, with only 2.47% audiovisual content and 0.03% in 3D. The collection of 3D assets in particular should see a massive boost, thanks to this latest initiative.
Source: European Commission I Digital (https://bit.ly/3HkfwRc)