Enhancing access to Europe's shared cultural heritage for everyone to enjoy and be inspired by is a major EU policy goal. From increasing access to culture and improving engagement, to supporting preservation and fostering reuse, 3D offers unprecedented opportunities to advance this objective. 3D models are not just digital copies of heritage assets. They capture intricate details about the object and its story, as well as the digital documentation process, offering new knowledge and fresh insights.
In 2019, EU Member States acknowledged the potential of 3D for digital preservation that reflects the multidimensionality of cultural heritage, and called for ‘a pan-European initiative for 3D digitisation of cultural heritage artefacts, monuments and sites’ (Declaration of Cooperation on advancing digitisation of cultural heritage (2019)).
The European Commission Recommendation of 2021 on a common European data space for cultural heritage invites EU Member States to digitise in 3D all monuments and sites deemed at risk, and half of the most physically visited by 2030. It also sets ambitious targets for 3D content contribution to Europeana and the data space.
To contribute to these targets, the European Commission and the Europeana Initiative launched the Twin it! 3D for Europe’s culture campaign in June 2023, in cooperation with the Swedish, Spanish and Belgian Presidencies of the Council of the EU. Twin it! invited EU Member States to submit at least one 3D-digitised heritage asset to the data space, resulting in an exceptional collection of 37 emblematic and high-quality assets.
Twin it! enhanced 3D commitment and capabilities across Member States, heritage institutions, the Europeana ecosystem and the professional community. Ahead of the Recommendation 2025 interim targets, we must seize this moment to assess our joint progress, leverage insights, and set future directions.
This Call to Action draws inspiration from the collective expertise of Twin it! partners: the Europeana Initiative (consisting of three interlinked organisations: the Europeana Foundation, the Europeana Network Association and the Europeana Aggregators’ Forum), the European Commission, the three rotating Presidencies, Twin it! contact points in Member States, contributing cultural heritage institutions, as well as the members of the Expert Group on a common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage (CEDCHE). It reflects the input from leading experts from the data space 3D Working Group, the 4CH Competence Centre for the Conservation of Cultural Heritage, and the 5DCulture and Eureka3D EU-funded projects. It also builds on the exchanges held at the Twin it! high-level event on 14 May 2024 in Brussels. This high-level event gathered Ministers of Culture, policy makers at all levels, experts and key stakeholders to explore critical questions around 3D digitisation in our sector.
On this basis, the Twin it! Call to Action sets out seven key priorities to advance the Recommendation’s goals. It also represents a strong commitment from all parties involved towards these goals and principles.
Adopt a purpose-led and user-based approach to 3D digitisation. The decision of what to digitise in 3D and at what quality level should be based on how the 3D content will be used and by whom. This will also define the necessary investment and the choice of technology. While 3D digitisation with the highest level of precision is a requirement for reconstruction, a lower resolution can be fit for purpose if the main goal is to increase online access. A purpose-oriented and user-based approach can provide practical guidelines for efficient and effective 3D digitisation, and complement the quantitative indicators of the 2021 Recommendation with a qualitative approach.
Increase the understanding and prioritisation of the categories of the 2021 Recommendation in national 3D digitisation strategies and inventories. The Recommendation invites Member States to prioritise and set targets for the 3D digitisation and digital preservation of cultural heritage at risk and most visited monuments and sites. It also encourages paying special attention to under-digitised cultural heritage, although this category does not only refer to 3D. Twin it! highlighted the usefulness of these categories for prioritising 3D digitisation, yet also revealed a lack of common understanding. Increasing understanding of these categories among Member States will facilitate their incorporation into existing national heritage inventories. In turn, this will help inform decision making, align national strategies with the Recommendation targets, track progress and ensure comparable data across national databases.
Increase understanding of 3D workflows in the sector, building on studies like Basic principles and tips for 3D digitisation of cultural heritage (2019) and the Study on quality in 3D digitisation of tangible cultural heritage (2022). Twin it! highlighted the need for our sector as a whole to better understand 3D processes. This includes prioritisation, data capture and 3D modelling, metadata creation, paradata collection and sharing, choice of the most suitable formats for preservation and sharing, licensing, aggregation, publication, storage and reuse of 3D material. Twin it! also stressed the benefits of networking and sharing experiences across Europe. Defining common overarching workflows is essential. Our sector must also leverage Artificial Intelligence to accelerate 3D digitisation and optimise 3D digitisation workflows.
Continue to strategically fund 3D digitisation at EU, Member State and institutional levels. The Recommendation calls for a substantial upscaling of 3D digitisation. This requires continued awareness raising on the advantages of 3D in cultural institutions throughout Europe, building on the Twin it! campaign. Increased financial support for 3D infrastructure and innovation is essential, including for the data space and data space-supporting projects within the upcoming Digital Europe Programme. The Europeana Initiative and Member States should continue investing in a robust aggregation ecosystem through national, thematic and domain Aggregators, which played a key role in Twin it!. Capacity needs to be created for aggregators to evolve and modernise their support to heritage institutions and other providers.
Support the emergence of sustainable and interoperable European platforms for archiving, hosting and viewing 3D cultural heritage. Twin it! highlighted the reliance on commercial platforms from third countries for archiving, viewing and hosting 3D models, and the need for European, open and public platforms whose sustainability and public-interest-first operations can be guaranteed. The EU must continue to financially support the development of such tools, and robust digital public infrastructures where heritage is recognised as a collective, accessible and shareable resource of public interest. Such tools and infrastructures must be interoperable and easily accessible by cultural institutions of all sizes and at any stage of their digital transformation.
Align efforts and increase cooperation to boost Europe’s collective capacity for 3D. Twin it! demonstrated the potential of collaborations through a fruitful partnership with the 4CH, which resulted in tailored technical support to Member States. The data space should closely collaborate with ongoing initiatives with 3D expertise such as Time Machin, the Cultural Heritage Cloud and the future Competence Centre for 3D. Cooperation with European and international organisations like the Council of Europe and UNESCO, and with civil society stakeholders like Europa Nostra, the European Heritage Hub and ICOM will be key when it comes to 3D digitisation of heritage at risk and most visited sites (for example, on the basis of existing registers and lists of heritage at risk such as UNESCO List of World Heritage in Danger in EU Member States, Europa Nostra’s 7 Most Endangered or ICOM Red Lists of Cultural Objects at Risk). Such collaborations should continue and build upon existing efforts which lead to the development of standards in 3D.
Enable, promote and build capacity on the reuse of 3D content. The reusability of content, including 3D models and related data, contributes to the development of new knowledge and stimulates creativity and innovation. Twin it! revealed challenges around assessing copyright and communicating accurate and open reuse conditions of 3D models. The Europeana Initiative and the data space will continue to raise awareness of the positive impact of reuse, build capacity around communicating rights information, and strengthen 3D metadata and paradata standards in support of reuse. It is important that cultural heritage institutions comply with EU copyright law, which states that unoriginal reproductions of public domain works are not subject to copyright or related rights. Additionally, if an asset is digitised with support from public funding, the resulting data and models should not be subject to reuse limitations.
