Six specialist communities
On the first day of the meeting (5 July), the Council formally approved six new communities where ENA members could work together to cultivate and share knowledge, expertise and best practices around a specific topic or area of common interest in a rewarding way. These groups are Europeana Tech, Europeana Impact, Europeana Copyright, Europeana Research, Europeana Education, and Europeana Communicators Group.
Based on personal preference, the Councillors were then divided into six groups representing each of the communities. Every group worked on specific community work plan with the objective to implement the new structure and come up with a strategy that can be acted upon.
A shift in structure: moving towards collaboration and communities
Back in March 2018, the Council decided to revive the network around special groups of interest. After analysing the existing Europeana and ENA community landscape, they have agreed to integrate these special interest groups into the existing Europeana’s communities in order to have an effective and well-functioning structure in place.
The main focus of the July meeting was to work on developing and/or strengthening Europeana and Network work efforts in both plenary discussions and in breakout groups. The Chair of the Europeana Network Association (ENA), Merete Sanderhoff explained that this process would mean a shift toward strengthening collaborative community groups. She stated that since the previous meeting, the Management Board had reflected on the structure of the communities and special interest groups, and decided that a collaborative, consultative community approach would be most effective.