The common European data space for cultural heritage, funded under Digital Europe and deployed by the Europeana Initiative, accelerates the digital transformation of the heritage sector. While Digital Europe recognises the need for enhanced digital infrastructures in culture, the data space is the only earmarked cultural project and the sole opportunity to reach this goal. During the programme’s mid-term evaluation, the Europeana Initiative urges an immediate revision of the budget and co-financing terms assigned to this flagship initiative.
Stagnant budget allocations which have not kept pace with inflation are jeopardising its operational capacity. Current funding falls short of the Europeana Initiative’s and the EU’s ambitions for the data space, as outlined in the European Commission 2021 Recommendation. This Recommendation sets bold targets for Member States, calling for an additional 40 million high-quality and diverse assets in the data space by 2030. It also calls for the digitisation of all monuments and sites at risk and half of the most physically visited in 3D by then.
Considering these ambitions, current financial needs, a thorough cost analysis and future projections, the Europeana Initiative urges the European Commission to allocate an annual budget of €12 million for the data space core service within the 2025 - 2027 Digital Europe Work Plan, currently being prepared.
Additionally, we recommend allocating €2 million annually for data space supporting projects with a maximum of 25% co-funding from participating institutions. This would reduce barriers for the small and medium-sized organisations which make up most of the heritage sector and are key data space contributors, as noted in the Recommendation. The current 50% co-funding rate is ill-suited to the sector's needs.
In the first two years of data space deployment, together with our partners we have established a robust and interoperable infrastructure building on Europeana, improved data aggregation systems, and provided tailored support to professionals to actively contribute to the data space. With this strong foundation, the data space can scale operations and deliver greater value. However, achieving the targets of the Recommendation requires additional efforts and greater resource allocation. It demands making available richer, more connected and interoperable data and metadata, and updating, developing and governing new frameworks and standards to ensure its trustworthiness, quality and usability. It requires continued and tailored support to Member States in large-scale data creation. And close collaboration with existing and emerging initiatives and data spaces.
A yearly investment of €14 million (€12 million for the core service and €2 million for supporting projects) would enable the Europeana Initiative, its partners and the sector to pursue these goals. This will significantly enhance access to Europe’s culture, improve preservation and promotion, and create new opportunities for reuse across sectors and data spaces, including tourism, media and languages.
Investing in culture is investing in people. The cultural sector enhances social cohesion and well-being and is a key economic driver in the EU, employing 7.7 million - 3.8% of total EU employment. Over 1.9 million active cultural enterprises, mainly small and medium-sized, generated €183 billion value added in 2021.
As Europe strives to enhance its global digital leadership and sovereignty, allocating sufficient resources to the data space for cultural heritage - one of the few operational data spaces to date - is crucial. We hope the Digital Europe mid-term review will secure support to develop and scale a vibrant, sustainable and impactful data space.
