Recommendations for Europeana's future from Irish conference

Delegates at Europeana's conference on 'Funding digitisation: can accessible cultural heritage fuel social and economic growth?' provided clear recommendations for the future direction of Europeana - as a catalyst, as a hub and as a coordinator.

The event, which was held as part of the Irish EU presidency at Dublin Castle on 21 June 2013, began with addresses from Jimmy Deenihan, Minister of Culture for Ireland, and Gudrun Stock from DG Connect, European Commission. The speakers that followed represented a range of highly respected organisations including the Rijksmuseum, Retronaut, Trinity College Dublin Library and Historypin. Nick Poole, Europeana Network Chair and Chief Executive of the Collections Trust and Harry Verwayen, Deputy Director of Europeana, discussed the long-term perspective on the future of the cultural heritage sector and Europeana's #AllezCulture campaign.

See all of the event presentations on Slideshare and browse photos on Flickr.

Europeana's Harry Verwayen and Irish Minister for Culture, Jimmy Deenihan

As part of the event, Doris Pack of the EU Committee on Culture and Education, recorded this short video for us, encouraging everyone to support Europeana's bid for continued funding:

Harry would like to thank all those who participated in the conference and says that your valuable contributions 'have very much helped in strengthening our mutual understanding about the role that culture can and should play in fuelling a new digital economy, and in raising awareness for Europeana. Over the next couple of weeks, we will build a strategic outline for the future of Europeana based on your recommendations, and we hope to receive your continuous support in making the case for funding of Europeana under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF).'

Recommendations

Part of the event was a roundtable discussion on the question ‘How can Europeana be of most value?’ This topic was very adequately addressed and has given us some sound recommendations. Rather than focusing on the portal as the single point of access, delegates proposed that the unique value of Europeana was to work with the Europeana Network to coordinate solutions. This is important because without Europeana, individual member states would still have to develop the same solutions but at much higher costs. Specifically, the recommendation was that Europeana should focus on creating ‘European added value’:

• Be a catalyst: driver of innovation, of change, a connector with other industries
• Be a hub: of data, of knowledge, of connections, of new ideas
• Be a coordinator: of principles, of licenses, of partnerships, of standards

It was also suggested that the representatives should support the #AllezCulture campaign in the following ways:

• Sign the petition and send it on
• Ensure that letters of support are sent from cultural institutions to Brussels
• Dig up case studies, facts, and tweet or post them on Facebook

Allez!