2 minutes to read Posted on Wednesday February 10, 2021

Updated on Monday November 6, 2023

Alba Irollo

Research Coordinator , Europeana Foundation

Announcing our call for the Europeana Research Community video series

Today, we are delighted to launch a new initiative for the Europeana Research Community: a call for videos that showcase cutting edge projects and collaborations developed across the research and cultural heritage sectors. Approximately eight proposals submitted by 31 March can receive financial support of up to €300 each.

A chance to promote your project

As of 2021, the Europeana Research Community now has more than 1,600 members and is the largest community in the Europeana Network Association. We feel it is time to do something special for our impressive membership.

One of the community’s aims is to promote collaborations across the cultural heritage and research sectors, as well as to facilitate knowledge exchange in the broadest sense. We want to give professionals working in these two sectors a new space to present their ongoing experiences or achievements, as long as they have digital cultural heritage as their common thread. At a time when we don’t have the opportunity to meet in person at international conferences, we see an additional value in giving you the floor in a virtual environment.

So we are delighted to launch our first call for videos addressed to the Europeana Research Community. In particular, we are looking for cutting edge projects which use digital resources and tools and which can be an inspiration to others. Whether you are an archivist or an archaeologist, a librarian or a scholar in language and literature studies, a museum curator or an art historian based in Europe, you may want to consider this opportunity to promote a cross-sectoral project.

A multimedia approach

Communicating project activities and results through multimedia is increasingly becoming a must (see, for example, the Quick Guide by the European Commission on Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation). The web has amplified the possibility of getting the attention of professionals who share our interests but also of stakeholders who can support our future research. Video can be a clear and effective way of communicating work and intentions.

For this call, we encourage you to take full advantage of the potential of the audiovisual to, for example, show the institution where you work, illustrate the cultural heritage assets at the core of a project, explore a project which bought together the physical and digital, share why digital resources and tools are relevant to your objectives, or explain how funding opportunities and technologies have made them feasible. Multilingualism matters to us, so feel free to speak your native language in the video and provide English subtitles.

The results of this call will inaugurate the Europeana Research Community Series, as a collection of videos showcasing fresh ways of enhancing cultural heritage through research, particularly in the fields of Social Sciences and Humanities, up to the so-called Digital Humanities’ expanding territories.

Submit a proposal for a video

If you would like to create a video please read the guidelines at the end of this post and submit a proposal through the link below. You will need to provide some basic information, as well as describe your project, explain why you think it is relevant to the Europeana Research Community, and specify what you would like to show in the video. Please also add relevant links - links to project-related webpages and to videos you/your institution have already made would be particularly helpful.

Proposals will be assessed by the Europeana Research Community Steering Group on a rolling basis, and successful applicants will be required to provide the video and an introductory text within two months after they are notified that their proposal has been accepted. We are making a small budget available to the proposals submitted before 31 March 2021. If your institution isn’t equipped to support you in making a high-quality video, you can benefit from up to €300 for the uses detailed in the guidelines below. Approximately eight selected proposals will receive funding. Europeana will transfer the amount requested after the acceptance of the video proposal, upon the receipt of an invoice.

Your video should not exceed five minutes; please be aware that videos up to two minutes are the most effective on social media. You need to be a member of the Research Community to participate in this call. If you aren’t yet, it is free and easy to join the community.

Submit your proposal

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Production guidelines

We are pleased to offer some guidelines from our knowledge development specialist Sebastiaan ter Burg around creating video content, which we hope will be reusable in other contexts and offer guidance to future professionals engaged in research-related projects, and build capacity in institutions to meet emerging needs.

Minimum requirements

We have determined minimum requirements to ensure the usability of your video content, which are intended to ensure that we can use your content in varied ways, now and in the future. The list below is not exhaustive. Please do not hesitate to reach out to us by emailing sebastiaan.terburg@europeana.eu if you have questions that are not covered in this list, or you are planning to do part of your video production yourself but doubt your content meets the requirements below.

Publish under an open license

We encourage you to use the most open license possible for your content to secure future reuse. If possible, use a CC BY 4.0 or CC BY-SA 4.0 license.

Copyrighted content

Please do not use copyrighted content. Content that is openly licensed with a Creative Commons BY or BY-SA license is preferred over licensed content that you paid for. This includes images, music, video, animation, etc. The main reason is that, even if you have a license to use the content, the use of the licensed content is limited to the use you declare when buying the license and your publication, and we may not be allowed to publish the content without buying a license too.

Consent forms

Are you interviewing people? Are you working on the video as a team? Then make sure that everyone involved knows how to content will be published and might be used. In other words: make sure that they know and agree to the fact that it will be published under an open license and that reuse will be encouraged. We suggest the use of consent forms for participants outside your organisation. Are you working with people under 18? Then make sure you get permission from their parents.

Audio quality

We expect your audio to be of good quality. This goes for voice overs, interviews and background music. The audio should be loud enough without background noise(s). Music should not conflict with interviews and/or voice overs.

Video quality

Your video should be at least in Full HD (1920 * 1080 pixels). 4K is not necessary, but if you have the possibility to produce in 4K we highly encourage it.

Editing and color correction

Your video should be edited to cover your core messages and include basic color correction that reflects natural colours.

Language and subtitles

All videos submitted should be subtitled. Your video does not have to be in English, but if you choose to make your video in your own language, then English subtitles are required. We encourage you to include captions (subtitles in your own language) too. Please export your video in multiple ways: without subtitles and with the subtitle files as separate .srt files and with the subtitles “baked in” the video. You can do this for each language and/or with multiple languages in the same video.

Time

Your video should be at least 90 seconds and shorter than five minutes.

Codec

We need an .mp4 at least. We encourage sharing higher quality video files (uncompressed, for example Prores422 LT).

Future proofing

Are you making a video that might need an update in the (near) future? Then make sure to archive your project in such a way that an update is easy to make. This video gives some practical guidelines in organising video assets.

Publication platforms and moment

Your video will be published on Europeana channels. You can also publish it to your own video platforms if you want to.

Support needed

You can request funding for this if you don’t have the equipment, skills or time to produce this. Funding can be used for example for:

Translation for the subtitles in English
Voice over artists
Simple animation
Checking scripts
Editing of a video, for example putting slides and a voice over together
Subtitles and captions

These services can be found in many different levels of quality and relating prices. A few websites that might be worth your time to check for these services are fiverr.com and PeoplePerHour.com for voice overs, animation and editing. Descript can be used for editing and subtitles and Rev.com for subtitles and captions.

Below is an example of a budget breakdown for a production for a video of 3 minutes where you have supplied video content, images and/or slides:

Voice over through Fiverr.com with proofreading and adjustments: €50,-
Editing of video through Fiverr.com (standard): €100,-
Subtitles (language of video): €7 per minute = €21,-
Subtitles (language of video translated to English subtitles) through Rev.com: €7 per minute = €21,-

Total budget: €192

This guidance was updated on 19/12/21 to note that all videos must be subtitled.

Disclaimer - The Europeana Foundation reserves the right to not publish the videos that don’t meet the quality level maintained on its channels. In any case, you are asked to add this disclaimer: 'This video was made for the Europeana Research Community Series. In no way, Europeana is responsible for its quality and content.'