This is a call for proposals for EU action grants in the field of Cloud, data and Artificial Intelligence under the Digital Europe Programme (DIGITAL). The actions resulting from this call will contribute to the common European data space for cultural heritage:
The common European data space for cultural heritage is a new flagship initiative to provide support to the digital transformation of Europe’s cultural sector, and foster the creation and reuse of content in cultural and creative sectors. It was established by the Commission Recommendation C(2021)7953 of 10 November 2021 on a common European data space for cultural heritage (Recommendation).

Objectives and Scope

To deployment of the common European data space for cultural heritage will be funded under the Digital Europe Work Programme 2021-2022. The procurement contract setting up and running the data space is expected to be in place in Q3 2022. The data space will build on the current Europeana platform and will vastly expand its current functionalities, in particular in relation to 3D digitisation, re-use of digitised cultural resources as well as cross-sector and cross-border cooperation. The data space will also build on the current Europeana Strategy 2020-2025.
The technical infrastructure of the data space will be combined with governance mechanisms that will secure easy, cross-border access to key datasets in the targeted area of cultural heritage. The data space will deploy trust mechanisms (security and privacy by design) and data services which ensure the identity of source and receiver of data and which ensure the access and usage rights towards the data.

The call focuses on seizing the opportunities of advanced technologies for the digital transformation of the cultural heritage sector, like 3D, artificial intelligence or machine learning for increasing the quality, sustainability, use and re-use of data. These projects must contribute to the common European data space of cultural heritage, and will build digital capacity by collaborating with existing and relevant European national and regional initiatives and platforms.

Projects will cover at least one of the following application areas:

  1. Enriching the offer of data, tools and services available in the data space, such as access to high quality and high-value datasets, tools, technical know- how references, knowledge sharing, and other services, with the objective to support digitisation, sustainability and online sharing of digital cultural heritage assets.
  2. Using existing Artificial Intelligence and machine-learning systems to improve user-engagement and experience, such as the automatic translation of content or automatic metadata enrichment, improving multilingual aspects, providing adaptive filtering of cultural heritage assets or personalised recommendations.
  3. Re-use of, in particular, 3D digitised cultural heritage assets in important domains such as education, social sciences and humanities, tourism and the wider cultural and creative sector.

For more information and apply, please visit the portal of Funding & Tender Opportunities