Digital meets Culture

A 24 months research mapping the impact of cultural heritage in European societies.

New project for The ESPON European Grouping on Territorial Cooperation

The young project, started this May 2020, will complement the ESPON Targeted Analysis of 2019: “The Material Cultural Heritage as a Strategic Territorial Development Resource: Mapping Impacts Through a Set of Common European Socio-economic Indicators” (https://www.espon.eu/cultural-heritage).
The consortium is composed by three no-profit bodies with decades of European collaboration and joint research experiences:
•Istituto per la Ricerca Sociale (IRS, Project Leader)
•European Association of Cultural Researchers (ERICarts Network and Institute)
•Associazione Economia della Cultura (AEC)
HERIWELL will face more than 40 thematics and will involve a wide number of experts and specialists from across Europe.
Its main object is to develop of a pan-European methodology and territorial analysis of impacts of cultural heritage that can be associated with societal well-being, including but not limited to quality of life, social inclusion, educational benefits and other aspects. The research will cover both material and intangible cultural heritage and the impacts should be associated with:
– The presence of material cultural heritage (stock of buildings and other objects)
– Use of the material and intangible cultural heritage (including participation in related activities)
– Digitalisation of cultural heritage
– EU-funded investments in cultural heritage
– Activities (policies and measures, including participatory ones) aimed at increasing positive impacts of cultural heritage and diminishing potentially negative influences (if feasible).
The main outcome of HERIWELL will be a methodological framework, defining the most important societal domains in which impacts of cultural heritage can be observed, supporting such impacts with evidence.
In addition, it will provide a tentative classification of cultural heritage impacts on societal well-being considering three dimensions:
1.Quality of Life (including education/skills and the use of ICT for cultural purposes; health; cultural participation and satisfaction; environmental quality);
2. Social Cohesion (e.g. equal opportunities and integration; cultural accessibility and governance; community participation, volunteering and charitable giving; trust);
3. Material Conditions (e.g. income and jobs related to culture; real estate prices, cost of living).
For more information, download the overview of HERIWELL research project here

A 24 months research mapping the impact of cultural heritage in European societies.

New project for The ESPON European Grouping on Territorial Cooperation

Deadline submission of information about papers' title and authors: May 15, 2020

International Conference: Digital Presentation and Preservation of Cultural and Scientific Heritage – DiPP2020

The conference is organised under the patronage of Burgas Municipality and aims at presenting innovative results, research projects and applications in the field of digitisation, documentation, archiving, representation and preservation of global and national tangible and intangible cultural and scientific heritage. The main focus is to provide open access to digitised cultural heritage and to set up sustainable policies for its continuous digital preservation and conservation. Representatives of a number of public and specialised libraries, museums, galleries, archives, centres, both national and foreign research institutions and universities will be invited to participate and exchange experiences, ideas, knowledge and best practices of the field.
There will be also Workshop on Open Access to Scientific Publications, Data and Data Science, which will primarily focus on the following activities: Open Access indicators, disseminate partners’ best practices, discuss research problems in the field, discuss the possibilities of establishing a network of open access repositories, contribute to the problems of the harmonization of national legislation and practices and discuss the possibilities of developing training courses for creators and managers of scientific digital repositories to ensure interoperability.
When
September 24–26, 2020
Where
Burgas, Bulgaria
How
In response to travel and meeting difficulties eventually posed by the COVID-19, and taking into account that all risk of exposure should be minimized, DiPP2020 Committee has taken the decision to provide a fully virtual format and the registered delegates will be able to participate virtually as well as in-person.
Deadline for DiPP2020 paper submission: 5 June 2020.
Extended instructions are available at: http://dipp.math.bas.bg/
Main organizer
Institute of Mathematics and Informatics, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.
Co-organisers
Regional Academic Center – Burgas, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Regional Historical Museum – Burgas, Burgas Free University
DiPP2020 web site: http://dipp2020.math.bas.bg/

Contact
Desislava Paneva-Marinova, Detelin Luchev
Institute of Mathematics and Informatics, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
1113 Sofia, 8, Acad. G. Bonchev Str., room 271
office phone: +359 2 979 2874
e-mail: dipp@math.bas.bg, dessi@cc.bas.bg , dml@math.bas.bg
Call for papers

Deadline submission of information about papers' title and authors: May 15, 2020

International Conference: Digital Presentation and Preservation of Cultural and Scientific Heritage – DiPP2020

the new project about Chinese heritage in Europe was presented on 6th May at the online meeting of Europeana Aggregators

PAGODE at Europeana Aggregators Forum

The Europeana Aggregators Forum is the gathering where twice a year the community of Europeana most trusted partners meets to review strategies and collaborations, and make plans for the future. All the aggregators work with cultural heritage institutions to gather authentic, trustworthy and robust cultural data and make it accessible through Europeana. Through the Europeana Aggregators Forum, aggregators work to exchange the knowledge and best practice that support the digital transformation of cultural heritage institutions.

Due to the covid-19 restrictions, that of 6-7 May 2020 was the first only-virtual meeting, and despite it was a bit sad not to meet in person, the plenary and the various breakout session were perfectly working and efficient. PAGODE was enthusiastically presented to colleagues with a video and a short pitch. A call to networking to other aggregators and cultural heritage institutions was also launched in the light of having PAGODE as a seed for a new community around Chinese cultural heritage in Europe.

access PAGODE’s presentation (PDF)

about Europeana Aggregators >>

PAGODE – Europeana China is co-financed by the Connecting Europe Facility Programme of the European Union, under GA n. INEA/CEF/ICT/A2019/1931839

9th May 2020, 14:00-16:00 CET

Europe Day – Webinar on Digital Cultural Heritage

To commemorate this year’s Europe Day organised on the 9th of May a webinar dedicated to Digital Cultural Heritage is being organised.

This webinar brings together two of the smallest island nations of the EU – Malta and Cyprus. These are the only EU members in the Mediterranean sea, physically cut off from the main continent with thousands of years of rich history and unique UNESCO listed world heritage sites. Both Mediterranean Islands have a lot in common, they are both committed to preserve and valorize their Cultural Heritage. The will present in this event outstanding and unique case studies from their national digitization programs and beyond.

A number of outstanding case studies (UNESCO WHL monuments) from Cyprus, Malta & Germany, as well as current research projects will be presented, which will take a very practical approach to the current and future challenges in Cultural Heritage.

Some of the topics being covered in this webinar include:

the contribution of digitization in the preservation, interpretation and valorization of Cultural Heritage.
the achievements in Cultural Heritage digitization in each of these two nations.
the current challenges being faced by cultural Heritage due to the COVID19 pandemic.
ways how Cultural Heritage can push a regeneration of the tourism sector.
the way forward in terms of harnessing the digital potential in Cultural Heritage and collaboration on an EU level.

Speakers from the European Commission, EC representation in Cyprus, European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST), Ministry of Education and Culture of Cyprus and the Ministry of Culture Malta, Heritage Malta, the UNESCO Chair and ERA Chair at the Cyprus University of Technology, the University of Malta a Maltese member of the European Parliament will actively participate in this webinar.

Free registration: https://cutt.ly/Ryk8nja

this Saturday 9th May 2020, 14:00-16:00 CET

Special Webinar on Digital Cultural Heritage

To commemorate this year’s Europe Day organised on the 9th of May a webinar dedicated to Digital Cultural Heritage is being organised. This webinar brings together two of the smallest island nations of the EU – Malta and Cyprus. These are the only EU members in the Mediterranean sea, physically cut off from the main continent with thousands of years of rich history and unique UNESCO listed world heritage sites. Both Mediterranean Islands have a lot in common, they are both committed to preserve and valorize their Cultural Heritage. The will present in this event outstanding and unique case studies from their national digitization programs and beyond.

Some of the topics being covered in this webinar include:

– the contribution of digitization in the preservation, interpretation and valorization of Cultural Heritage.

– the achievements in Cultural Heritage digitization in each of these two nations.

– the current challenges being faced by cultural Heritage due to the COVID19 pandemic.

– ways how Cultural Heritage can push a regeneration of the tourism sector.

– the way forward in terms of harnessing the digital potential in Cultural Heritage and collaboration on an EU level.

Free registration: https://cutt.ly/Ryk8nja

Want a taste of the future?

Ars Electronica Home Delivery!

The Ars Electronica Center of Linz (Austria) offers to people a weekly programme for attending at performances, concerts, exhibitions from their homes, just connecting at ars.electronica.art/homedelivery/en.
Objective:
Ars Electronica Home Delivery initiative is not conceived as a substitute of a visit to the museum for the time it remains closed, but rather as a newly developed approach that aims to permanently open up the Linz-based artistic and scholarly engagement and enlarge its audience. The goal is to create an additional and lasting range of offerings, able to enhance the museum portfolio in the long term, for example, for schools and businesses. In the future, guided tours, presentations, and workshops will not just be held at the Ars Electronica Center in Linz, but also on the web or as hybrid formats, thus making them interesting for an audience beyond Austria’s borders.

Challenge:
The use of the web represents a very interesting challenge for the team of the museum: it aim at creating an experience to foster people to actively take part and participate by involving, inspiring and motivating everyone.
Services:
The weekly programme of Ars Electronica Home Delivery includes guided tours of Ars Electronica exhibitions, excursions to the Ars Electronica Labs, visits to the Machine Learning Studio, 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 is pre-recorded, most of it is interactive, and all of it is going to be LIVE.
People can experience all the Ars Electronica Home Delivery events live at ars.electronica.art/homedelivery and watch them again afterwards here.

Full press release, photos and a video can be found here.
Ars Electronica Center website
Contacts: robert.bauernhansl@ars.electronica.art / Tel.: +43.732.7272.38

A virtual platform to share and promote digital best practices related to culture and cultural heritage from across Europe and the world.

Europa Nostra digital Agora

COVID-19 pandemic particularly affected the cultural and cultural heritage sectors with travel bans, public closures and event cancellations with alarming financial implications.
As a consequence, plenty of museums and cultural organizations increased the use of digital technology and started to find creative and innovative digital solutions such as free online content, social media challenges, online concerts or webinars with the goal to reach their audience, engage new public and continue to share culture.
The measures that at the beginning have been adopted as the only challenge for remaining alive in this context have been transformed into an opportunity, a new form for making, sharing, connecting people and promoting civic engagement in art and culture.
Europa Nostra decided to collect these several digital initiatives in a virtual space, fostering its wide network of members, associates, partners, and volunteers to share their virtual interactions and journeys for optimising people’s confinement.
The platform offers a wide range of virtual tours, online performances, webinars, podcasts, resources, social media challenges and latest EU policy updates.

Europa Nostra invite to get involved in the Agora by:
– Sharing digital initiatives to be featured at agora@europanostra.org
– Engaging on social media (Twitter, Facebook and Instagram) with the hashtag #EuropaNostraAgora
– weekly update providing a “digest” overview of the collection
– Visiting the Europa Nostra Digital Agora online platform

The new research outlining the role played by arts and culture in supporting access to higher education

‘Welcoming Culture in Universities- Awareness of Gypsy Roma Traveller’s culture’

The project, carried out by Rosemary (Rosa) E Kostic Ciseros from Coventry University’s Centre for Dance Research included a symposium, 2 art exhibitions, 2 online campaigns, 3 films.
During the activities GRT and non-GRT academics and artists and policymakers worked in partnership for better understand local, regional or national challenges.
The cultural heritage artefacts from the GRT community members involved in the project raised a debate around how to make universities more culturally welcoming to marginalised communities.
Objectives:
• Extend existing related research activity and support HE institutions in addressing particular social issues facing different vulnerable communities at a local and national level;
• Facilitate the use of existing research and the exchange of knowledge between universities, artists and policymakers
• Carryout events and activities aimed at improving the dialogue between universities, artists and policymakers;
• Activity and training to better equip academics, including postgraduate researchers and early career researchers, to communicate effectively with policymakers;
• Partnerships and collaborations aimed at supporting evidence-based policy making;
• The exchange of people best practices;
• Curate an exhibition that reflects the data and display this in an artistic manner within the university environment.
The findings of the project feed directly into a follow up to the GRT in HE report drafted with Baroness Whitaker from Westminster in November 2019 and led by Professor Margaret Greenfields from Buckinghamshire New University (BUCKS).

Links to the films:
•GRT in HE Film- Highlights film from the Feb 27th workshop held at Coventry University: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvpTuA151WU&t=9s
•#EachforEqual campaign film link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pegMEihVMRc
•Generations film link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBaSUWGTOx0&t=2s
Read the full report here.