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The SOPHIA Social Platform launched its first Newsletter

This first edition of the SOPHIA project Newsletter “Cultural Heritage and Impact Assessment” provides a general overview of the mission and challenges of the social platform. It invites to reflect on the importance to assess and evaluate projects dealing with cultural heritage by adopting an holistic point of view.
It also introduces the first outputs of the projects presenting the outcomes of the first workshop, the first scientific production and new collaborations.
The full title of SOPHIA is “Social Platform for Holistic Impact Heritage Assessment” and it aims to promote collective reflection within the cultural and political sector in Europe on the impact assessment and quality of interventions in European historical environment and cultural heritage at urban level.
Subscribe the newsletter and stay up to date on the latest initiatives promoted by the project.
Subscribe here
Link to the Sophia newsletter here
Sophia website: www.sophiaplatform.eu/
Twitter: @sophia_platform
Facebook: Sophia Platform
Contact:info@sophiaplatform.eu

online 15-16 December 2020

e-AGE 2020 virtual conference

e-AGE20, the 10th edition of the International Platform on Integrating Arab e-Infrastructure in a Global Environment will be held virtually during 15-16 December 2020. Its focus will be on the role of e-Infrastructures in the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic.

e-AGE 20 will be a forum to share practices and experiences that go beyond teaching online courses and sharing resources in today’s unprecedented isolation. NRENs and e-Infrastructures provide essential means to stay connected and to meet the new challenges of research and education.

e-AGE20 is coming with “Power of e-Infrastructures – Shaping the Future of Online Research and Education” as the main theme of the conference and all activities are centered on it.

Website and registration: https://asrenorg.net/eage20/

Ars Electronica keeps on its Home Delivery programme: online course in English language

In the framework of its Home Delivery initiative, the Ars Electronica Center, organized a series of online classes focused on Artistic Journalism. Starting by the reflection on the dramatic social changes caused by the Covid19 pandemic, the classes present artistic journalism as a new media, place, and system for broadly experiencing and discussing the future and new challenges.
Through its activities, Ars Electronica aims to create a dialogue with new knowledge that cannot be conveyed by books, newspapers and online media alone, and discuss how to apply this dialogue to future life and society.
The second class of this on line course, was held in English language. Hideaki Ogawa, Futurelab director, gave visitors and viewers an insight into the creative perspective of AI with the exhibition AI x Music where historic music machines and techno robots give unique performances along with the Bösendorfer 290 Imperial piano plays special AI compositions. The lesson was also joined by Ali Nikrang of Ars Electronica Futurelab whose research involves the interaction between human and AI systems with focus on creative applications.

Find part 1 of this lecture series here: Artistic Journalism 1/3: Understanding AI
Find part 2 of this lecture series here: Artistic Journalism 2/3: AI x Music
Find part 3 of this lecture series here: Artistic Journalism 3/3: Deep Issues

Ars Electronica Center is based in Linz, Austria and it promotes interactive experiences combining art and technology. Due to the covid 19 pandemic it was obliged to suspend visits to the center.
Nevertheless it didn’t stop its initiatives and actively reacted by proposing a rich programme of cultural performances to be listened directed by home. The weekly programme includes guided tours to exhibitions, excursions to Center’s labs, concerts with real-time visualizations, Deep Space LIVE sessions, workshops with engineers and talks with artists and scientists from all over the world. None of this session is pre-recorded, most are interactive and all are LIVE!
Contact for requests, suggestions and feedback: home.delivery@ars.electronica.art
Link to the Ars Electronica website

Join the meeting now!

#OHDialogues: the 2nd workshop on adaptive heritage reuse is on streaming!

OpenHeritage launched a series of online interactive workshops focusing on key aspects of adaptive heritage reuse. The project, which full title is “OpenHeritage: Organizing, Promoting and ENabling HEritage Reuse through Inclusion, Technology, Access, Governance and Empowerment”, focuses on the creation of sustainable models of heritage asset management and aims to empower the community in the processes of its adaptive reuse.
The first meeting took place on September. It was titled “Adaptive heritage reuse: Policy contexts across Europe” and aimed at exploring good practices and measures to support and facilitate adaptive heritage reuse.
The second workshop “Sharing and Caring: Partnerships for Adaptive Heritage Reuse” is scheduled for today. Participants are invited to face and share experiences on the following questions:

How can municipalities work together with civic initiatives in supporting the community-led reuse of heritage spaces?
How can built heritage be an asset for the cities
How can public-private-people partnerships benefit heritage?
What is the potential of historical buildings to be more than just monuments to preserve?

The discussion will explore these questions in various policy environments across Europe, in small towns as well as in big cities, focusing on good practices of establishing partnerships, and strategies to overcome challenges.
This second OpenHeritage Dialogue is co-produced by OpenHeritage and Cooperative City. The workshop is organised by ICLEI and co-organised by CEU, Eutropian, and MRI.
REACH, as syster project of openheritage, has been invited together with ILUCIDARE to share its reflection and experience on the topic.
A live stream of the Dialogue’s opening session is available from on the OpenHeritage and Cooperative City facebook pages.
The third workshop, “Adaptive heritage reuse: Financing and business models (tbc)” is planned for Spring 2021 in Berlin
Contacts: dialogues@openheritage.eu
OpenHeritaje dialogues webpage

2nd-5th November 2020

Successful results and high participation for EuroMed 2020 on line conference

During the 4 days conference a rich and varied agenda of project’s presentations and workshops have shown new ways to conceived and manage cultural heritage, new challenges for digitization to foster engagement and social participation as well as new horizons to support the resilience of culture in its intangible and tangible dimensions. The richness of the proposals had literally stuck participants to their videos during all day long. The event gathered 1063 participants from 77 different countries from all the continents of the world.
All conference was recorded and videos are progressively becoming available on the Digital Heritage Research Lab You Tube channel.
The 8th biannual European-Mediterranean (EUROMED) conference was co-organised by the UNESCO and the EU ERA Chairs on Digital Cultural Heritage. It brought together multidisciplinary researchers, policy makers, professionals, fellows, practitioners and stakeholders to explore some of the more pressing issues concerning Cultural Heritage today. In particular, the main goal of the conference was to focus on interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary research on tangible and intangible Cultural Heritage, using cutting edge technologies for the protection, restoration, preservation, massive digitisation, documentation and presentation of the Cultural Heritage contents. At the same time, the event intended to cover topics of research ready for exploitation, demonstrating the acceptability of new sustainable approaches and new technologies by the user community, owners, managers and conservators of our cultural patrimony.

In the framework of the storytelling session of EuroMed 2020 conference, the REACH social platform presented a project paper title “The Reach Project Contribution to Protecting, Preserving and Valuing Tangible and Intangible Heritage through Participation”.
The involvement in such alive event provided to REACH a unique occasion to create new liaisons and to widen the perspectives of participation in cultural heritage.

Video on REACH project presentation available here
Link to the Digital Heritage Research Lab You Tube channel
Euromed2020 conference webpage
Link to the REACH blog
Link to the REACH website

the virtual kick-off was hosted on 5-6 November 2020 by the project coordinator KU Leuven, with participation of all the partners

CitizenHeritage, a new project about citizen participation in education and research

CitizenHeritage – Citizen Science Practices in Cultural Heritage: towards a Sustainable Model in Higher Education

A new project co-financed by the European Union under the Erasmus+ programme, to empower Citizen Science and participation in cultural heritage as a booster for higher education.

CitizenHeritage will provide Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) with new insights and opportunities to include Citizen Science activities for social purposes into HEIs curricula, teaching and learning activities. It will offer them a selection of good practices on how to benefit from the knowledge circulation in and outside academia and how to adopt a more vibrant role in civil society. The digital realm, with the digitisation of vast collections published in open access, and the growing availability of tools for online engagement and interaction, opens up incredible new possibilities to further stimulate knowledge creation and circulation in cooperation with citizens.

The project includes three universities (KU Leuven, National Technical University of Athens and Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam), two Europeana domain aggregators (Photoconsortium and European Fashion Heritage Association) and one specialized SME (Web2Learn). All partners met virtually on 5-6 November to align the plans for the various project’s activities.

image courtesy of Cyprus University of Technology

The project’s innovative contributions are:
1. its ‘making citizens part of the workflow’ approach.
A general reappraisal of citizen generated content is taking place in the cultural sector today. CHIs are constantly looking for new ways to involve citizens in their activities.
2. the close collaboration it establishes with the Cultural Heritage sector
Via the active participation of Photoconsortium and European Fashion Heritage Association, the project will engage with stakeholders and professionals in the digital cultural heritage domain, establing collaboration for knowledge sharing and co-curation between academics and stakeholders.
3. its focus on technological innovation
The project aims to test how the latest technological innovations to manage digital cultural heritage can support and enhance Citizen Science participation, both from a pedagogical and heritage perspective.
4. its analysis of the conditions favouring sustainability
CitizenHeritage will explore the degree to which Citizen Science can be an element to stimulate sustainability by promoting social ownership of cultural heritage knowledge. To do so, this project proposes the conceptualization of cultural heritage activities engagement as a cultural common in which value is created by social engagement between HEIs, CHIs and citizens at large. Based on variables of governance, financing and social engagement, the project will then examine the conditions under which CS makes both socially and economically sustainable contributions.

Website: www.citizenheritage.eu

Rock Open knowledge Week and EuroMed2020 Conference

Urban regeneration and digital heritage: two valuable experiences for the REACH project

A very intense period for the REACH project the one between the end of October and the beginning of November: 2 on line events provided the occasion to present the results of the REACH project activities and to increase its network.

From 27^th to 30^th October the REACH project was invited to held a booth to the virtual exhibition organized in the framework of the ROCK Opening Knowledge Week an on line initiative dedicated to explore the challenges of the urban heritage: the success of this event can be resumed through the following data:

15 Hours live broadcasting over 4 days
57 Speakers
34 Exhibitors
794 Registrations
458 Active participants
11342 Total pages opened
01:00 – 02:49 Hours average time spend on platform / day
106 Random speed dates
171 One-on-one conversations

During the 4 days event, REACH had the opportunity to confront and exchange information and experiences with other exhibitors and invited them to join its network participating to the REACH digital gallery and following the discussion about the sustainability of the Social Platform.

The organizers have published a very attractive graphic recorded presenting an overview of the all week that is available on the ROCK website.

Yesterday, 5 November, was the last day of the 8th International Euro-Mediterranean Conference (EuroMed 2020). The event started the 2rd November and offered a rich programme of workshops and presentations for exchange know-how and experiences in the Cultural Heritage field with specific attention to the use of digitization and 3d technology. The conference was followed by more than one thousand of attendees and in the next days the results of this wide participation will be available on the conference website.

REACH presented its contribution related to the preservation and protection of intangible and tangible heritage through participatory actions, with special regards to the outcomes of its pilots activities.

The EuroMed2020 Proceeding will be published by Springer Verlag in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) series (www.springer.com/lncs).
The presentation and the full project paper are now available on the REACH website.

Download the Euromed REACH project paper here.
Download the Euromed 2020 booklet here

This afternoon, Thursday 5th November, stay connected and join the REACH project at the Euromed 2020 on line Conference

In the framework of the storytelling session of Euromed 2020 conference, the social platform of the REACH project will leave its contribution presenting a short speech titled “The Reach Project Contribution to Protecting, Preserving and Valuing Tangible and Intangible Heritage through Participation”
So far, the online high level event has gathered more than 150 followers and more than 1000 registration coming from 70 different Countries.
The 8th biannual European-Mediterranean (EUROMED) conference is co-organised by the UNESCO and the EU ERA Chairs on Digital Cultural Heritage. It brings together multidisciplinary researchers, policy makers, professionals, fellows, practitioners and stakeholders to explore some of the more pressing issues concerning Cultural Heritage today. In particular, the main goal of the conference is to focus on interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary research on tangible and intangible Cultural Heritage, using cutting edge technologies for the protection, restoration, preservation, massive digitisation, documentation and presentation of the Cultural Heritage contents. At the same time, the event is intended to cover topics of research ready for exploitation, demonstrating the acceptability of new sustainable approaches and new technologies by the user community, owners, managers and conservators of our cultural patrimony.

Registration is free of charges and directly accessible by this link
Project’s paper agenda here
Euromed2020 conference webpage

online event 23-24 November 2020

Collect & Connect: Archives and Collections in a Digital Age

Collect & Connect aims to promote exchange and discussion between researchers and heritage professionals in the field of digital heritage. The conference officially concludes the Making Sense of Illustrated Handwritten Archives research project and presents the results of finished and original research in the field of digitized archives and cultural and natural heritage collections. The 2-day program offers a mix of keynotes, a round table discussion, project demonstrations and paper presentations.

Keynotes:

Sharon Leon, Associate Professor of History and Digital Humanities at Michigan State University on ‘From Event to Data Set: Perspective, Structure, and the Problem of Representation in Data-Driven Digital History‘
Franco Niccolucci, director of VAST-LAB research laboratory at PIN in Prato, Italy (PIN – University of Florence) on ‘The data challenge for cultural and natural heritage‘
Lambert Schomaker, Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Groningen and scientific director of the ALICE (Artificial Intelligence & Cognitive Engineering) research institute on ‘From pixels to knowledge using AI: Where do the humans fit in?‘

Click here for the full program, including all paper presentations, the Round table and the Demolab presentations.

Connect with the other participants
One of the main aims of an in-person event is to connect with other participants. This can be a driver for new collaborations with different stakeholders in the field. We wouldn’t want you to miss out on that experience! NetworkTables enables you to connect with conference participants, exchange contact details and remain in touch with them after the conference. So please fill in your NetworkTables profile when you register for the event! You’ll find instructions on the registration page. NetworkTables is an online service which does not require you to install software on your computer.

Useful links and hashtags

International conference website Collect & Connect: Archives and Collections in a Digital Age. 23 – 24 November 2020, The Netherlands.

About the Making Sense of Illustrated Handwritten Archives project, its goals and its research partners.

#COLCO2020

#shareyourknowlegde

#collectandconnect

NEMO publishes Covid-19 follow-up survey

How do museums deal with the problems that emerged during the pandemic?

Six months ago, NEMO (the Network of European Museum Organisations) published a study on the impact of Covid-19 on the European museum sector.

In recent weeks we are experiencing a second wave of museum closures across Europe and NEMO started to update the map of re-openings with dates and information concerning second closures.
bit.ly/NEMOmap.

After this first study on the impact of Covid-19 on the European museum sector, NEMO has published a follow-up survey to map the status quo and check in with the museums on how they deal with the issues that emerged during the pandemic.

The second Covid study of NEMO will present an in-depth evaluation of:

Income losses, its consequences and mitigation.
Development of digital museum offers.
Questions related to a “new normal”, including the re-assessment of museum priorities and success criteria.
Staff and visitor safety during the pandemic.

Participation in this survey will help identify the policies and measures to be proposed at European level.

The link to the survey is here and responses are accepted until Friday 20 November 2020.