Final Report Summary - SMARTCULTURE (SMART CULTURE)
Executive Summary:
The SmartCulture project is a coordination and support action (CSA) aiming to provide a sustainable access to cultural heritage and to unlock the treasures of our cultural heritage for a wider audience by using digital technologies.
The Consortium consists in 13 partners from 8 European regions, some of them being leaders for Information & Communication and Creative and Cultural industries and all of them having strong relationships to European Capitals of Culture (ECoCs).
The use of ICT tools will help to transform passive audiences into active practitioners of culture. Fostering culture in such ways also offers business opportunities and innovative impetus.
For achieving this goal, the SmartCulture consortium promote the creation of engaging digital experiences for access to cultural resources by the cross fertilization between ICT enterprises, Creative and Cultural Industries (CCIs, SMEs mainly) and research stakeholders across the eight European regions.
This approach leads to new opportunities and good practices for innovative digital access to cultural resources and digital culture mediation.
Project Context and Objectives:
Launched in December 2012 at EuraTechnologies in Nord-Pas de Calais region (France), SmartCulture is a 3 year-project based on transnational cooperation between 13 partners from 8 European regions sharing a common interest in culture, heritage and ICTs issues and willing to shape the future developments in the sector of Digital Culture.
The 8 partner regions benefit from high population densities, rich cultural heritage, as well as a strong dynamic in contents production. Some regions are even European leaders towards Information & Communication Technologies and Creative and Cultural Industries. Finally, all of the participants involved in the SmartCulture project have a strong relationship to European Capitals of Culture (ECoC) wheter previous winners or candidates.
Aiming to provide a sustainable access to cultural heritage to a wider range of users through digital technologies, SmartCulture project promoted the creation of engaging digital experiences which transform passive audiences into active practitioners.
For this purpose, the Consortium strengthened the territorial and transnational cross fertilizations between ICT enterprises, Creative and Cultural Industries (especially SMEs) and research stakeholders across Europe by encouraging mutual learning and mutual mentoring: professionals’ mobility, knowledge exchange and technology transfer, experience sharing to promote and increase capacities and market accessibility etc. In this attempt, the project specifically:
• ENHANCED the change of paradigm from culture 1.0 to 3.0 empowering active communities of practices.
• FOSTERED relationships between Cultural Heritage institutions, researchers, public authorities and businesses to create partnerships, enlarging the visibility and accessibility of Cultural Heritage collections and sites.
• PROVIDED opportunities to open up the hidden social and economic potential of Cultural Heritage through the use of digital technologies, but also to impact on the quality life of culturally diverse citizens.
• PROMOTED the creation of engaging digital experiences for access to cultural resources
• LED to new market opportunities and good practices for innovative digital access to cultural resources and digital cultural mediation.
In other words, SmartCulture aimed to build collectively positive inter-territorial agendas in which citizens may be able to recognize themselves, to contribute and participate actively in a knowledge-based societal paradigm. Reinforced by the digital age, these dimensions are indeed even more challenging and necessary to take into account. In the context of globalization, interdependences between people and countries are stronger and complex issues to tackle in our frames of development. But it represents above all the opportunities of creating new forms of interactions, partnerships and cooperation. Considering the human person’s empowerment and capabilities, at the center of these development issues, the concepts of “learning territories” or “Regions of Knowledge” from a cultural based approach, can be seen as “Smart” territories opened to transformations, building new kind of synergies between people, public authorities and private actors.
In this context it appears that in order to guarantee and ensure responsibility for the effectiveness of the project, better synergy between competencies should be found; therefore cross fertilization based on the quadruple helix model is recommended for linking up interactions between:
- Private companies: ICT and digital sector, Companies producing goods and services called cultural, creative industries, start-up creating products which interfere (or participate) with cultural life (especially the tourism-related businesses);
- Research organization and Academia: Universities, research centers and other for RTD entities. This helix also generally includes non-governmental (NGOs) and other non-profit organizations.
- Public bodies and institutions;
- Taking into account the Cultural 3.0 paradigm, is now recognized a 4th helix Civil persons or Social community. Indeed Cultural heritages’ actual recipients are always people, alone or together through communities, through organizations, institutions and various structures to which they participate.
In this context the SmartCulture Consortium has tackled six strategic missions to achieve during the duration of the project:
1- Analyze the RTD development and the needs of the Cultural sector towards the SmartCulture initiative.
2- Develop a Joint Action Plan and a Digital Culture Agenda among the participating regions.
3- Transfer knowledge and good practices to regions with a less developed research profile in ICT and Cultural Heritage innovation and strengthen their capacity to set up and develop regional research-driven clusters.
4- Promote synergies and catalyze links between public administrations, research institutions and the local business actors involved in the cultural clusters to enhance transversal dialogues between quadruple helix target groups.
5- Foster the transnational and cross-border co-operations between the actors, the mutual mentoring and mutual learning.
6- Develop and enhance internationalization of RTD in the cultural sector through international activities with complementary clusters and dissemination activities.
Project Results:
The work within the SmartCulture project has been organised according to a common Work Plan and structured in three stages including a total of eight work packages.
STAGE 1 – ANALYSIS AND MAPPING OF TECHNOLOGIES & INNOVATION IN DIGITAL CULTURAL HERITAGE
WORK PACKAGE 2 - Analysis and Integration – RDTI directory and SWOT analysis
Objectives
Based on a Societal, Economic and Political (SEP) approach, the 8 partner regions performed a mapping exercises of all relevant R&D and innovation activities in the field of SmartCulture in order to identify the key actors and the financial tools enabling and facilitating the introduction and implementation of SmartCulture. A regional and common SWOT analysis enabled to compare and analyse the situation across the participating regions, defining general conclusions and recommendations on complementarities, synergies and potential for future cooperation.
Significant results:
Regional inventory and analysis
First of all, a common methodology for the analysis of SmartCulture in regional clusters (Deliverable 2.1) was set up. Secondly, each partner region presented its regional context (dimension of the territory, demography, etc) and inventoried public and private key actors (political, research, educational, economic, cultural), regional policies & initiatives as well as success stories and good practice models in the Digital Cultural Heritage field (Deliverable 2.2).
The SmartCulture Consortium completed the inventory by a set of monitoring tools to evaluate and analyse the local environment of each SmartCulture region: 332 online questionnaires have been completed, 43 focus groups with 215 participants and 104 in depth interviews with 110 participants have been realized. In total, 657 European stakeholders from varied backgrounds - public authorities, business, academia and cultural organisations - have been involved in the survey.
SmartCulture as a strategic driver for the RoK and good practice models
Based on the collected data, a SWOT analysis (Deliverable 2.3) has been performed to provide a background and an overview of the commonalities and differencies among partner regions with respect to the Digital Cultural Heritage. In such a way, the participating regions gained insight into the strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the respective regions. This was essential to assess both success chances and possible contribution to the local and European economy.
Tools created:
Directory of RDT offer and demand
The 8 SmartCulture partner regions have designed a common platform untiltled “the Directory of RDT offer and demand ” (Deliverable 2.4) which inventories organisations, stakeholders, competences and needs, as well as existing and future projects in the public and private RDT in the scope of the SmartCulture project. Each partner has been responsible to maintain the data of its region and opened it to a wider network by inviting key stakeholders to share their data. At the end of the project, 94 organisations, 83 projects and 103 partners have been identified and inventoried. The Directory of RDT offer and demand is an ongoing valuable tool to foster transnational cross-sectorial collaboration by promoting regional competences and projects.
STAGE 2 – STRATEGIC RESEARCH AGENDA, JOINT ACTION PLAN AND BUSINESS PLAN
WORK PACKAGE 3 - Strategic Interdisciplinary Research Agendas (SIRA)
Objectives
After defining the methodology for the regional research agendas (Deliverable 3.1) the SmartCulture Consortium elaborated a regional Research Agenda (Deliverable 3.2) in each partner region on the basis of the SWOT analysis and the RTD offer and demand. Additional interviews with the regional research stakeholders were conducted; the goal was to identify specific cluster policies and regional partnership dynamics in terms of interaction, cooperation schemes and successfully implemented models for encouraging and further developing the technology transfer among research centres and the private sector (especially SMEs). Complementarities between the regions have been outlined in the Strategic Interdisciplinary Research Agenda (Deliverable 3.3) as well as the research opportunities, networking, synergies and transnational cooperation in the Digital Cultural Heritage field.
Significant results:
Regional Research Agenda
Each regional cluster has defined and implemented regional Research Agendas to reflect the regional core competencies and shortcomings as regards its capacity to produce, transfer and use knowledge for innovative cultural heritage technology solutions and their deployment. These agendas created a basis for understanding and planning the regional capabilities for promoting economic development and competitiveness through enhanced research activities. The sectors concerned are related to platforms for digital access to cultural resources, technologies for creating personalized and engaging digital cultural experiences, new cultural media, etc ... The 8 regional Research Agendas have been elaborated through desk research, interviews and meetings with local stakeholders and aggregated the following 4 outcomes:
▪ Disparities exist in the research infrastructures and competencies, in the current research lines and new products, as well as in the type of sources and amount of funding available for research in the Digital Cultural Heritage sector. Regions and regional clusters such as Nord-Pas de Calais (France), Brainport (Eindhoven, Netherlands), or Madrid (Spain), have strong research and technological infrastructure and have made significant progress in utilizing ICT in cultural heritage. On the other hand, regions such as Siena (Italy), with rich cultural heritage and significant traditions in the preservation, socialization and creative use of this heritage, encounter problems with the administrative organization and funding of cutting-edge research.
▪ Policies and Smart Specialization strategies: only a few of the regions have in place long-term strategic policies, aligned with the relevant EU documents, that identify CCIs and the ICT as main drivers for innovation and economic growth. For example, only some of the regions have included the CCIs as a core economic sector for investment and targeted development in their regional Smart Specialization Strategies. Respectively, the lack of long-term vision about the CCIs and the future of Digital Cultural Heritage significantly impedes the progress in the research and application of technology in support of innovations for interactive and open access to cultural heritage in the partner countries.
▪ Needs: Cultural heritage Institutions and museums are primarily receivers and users of new technologies and research results, rather than producers. Cultural heritage institutions in the partner regions do apply, to varying degrees, digital media to present their collections, such as online presentations, apps, multimedia displays, QR codes, audio tours based on infra-red, game engines, etc. Across regions, it is also clear that museums and Cultural Heritage institutions would benefit from specialised technical training, financial resources, and better mechanisms for networking and cooperation with key ICT and CCI actors in their region (e.g. private-public partnerships, dedicated funds, EU programs). Partners also emphasize the need for interdisciplinary research and closer cooperation between the ICT and research in the humanities and social sciences, which can inform innovative solutions for the further reflection and socialization of cultural heritage.
▪ Technologies: As concerns current research lines in Digital Cultural Heritage, most of the regions are actively experimenting (notwithstanding the differentiation in pace and resources available to do this) with mobile apps, with augmented reality and sensor-technology, 3D modelling, open data, semantic web, designing virtual visits to museums and collections. In terms of future trends and forward-looking scenarios, the following highlight the regions’ R&D efforts in a mid- and long-term perspective: further research and integration in practice of artificial intelligence projects, Human-robot collaboration, data mining, gestures and emotions combined interaction, mixed display system (the screen resolution will adapt itself considering the visitor’s position), voice and eye control, digital system minimization, etc.
SmartCulture Research Agenda
The aim of the SmartCulture Research Agenda was to produce detailed and interdisciplinary knowledge of various types of processes and experiences, integrating complementarities between the regions, collaborative projects to support exchanges. It drew a range of initiatives that push the development of both access and experiences to Digital Cultural Heritage (DCH) through collaboration between research, culture, and SMEs within digital media.
Based on the data provided by the 8 regional Research Agendas, the SmartCulture Research Agenda identified collaborative initiatives that can develop productive integrations of complementarities between the regions around three thematic research priorities:
• New heritages, new knowledge and new questions - This priority is based on the recognition that the advent of new technologies, changing demographics are not only affecting the ways in which cultural heritage material is collected, stored, presented, but also what cultural heritage is and how it should be interpreted. This research priority aims at formulating new research questions and/or methodologies in relation to various types of changes.
• Cultural research and innovation - This priority grows out of the institutional gaps identified within many of the Regional Research Agendas. What is identified is, broadly speaking, a gap between research on culture, which is (or has been) largely focused on preservation, and the entrepreneurial and innovation sector, which is largely based on visions of change and transformation. A collaborative venue for discussing more central questions with regard to culture, heritage and change will produce productive re-interpretations.
• The relevance and meaning of cultural heritage to contemporary audiences - The priority is linked to the argument that the development of sustainable models developed for access and usage of cultural heritage should be based on a more thorough understanding of what cultural heritage experiences actually mean for the end users. The expansion of users of cultural heritage is therefore largely dependent on more empirical research about the meaning and relevance of cultural heritage to contemporary users.
By monitoring each partner ecosystem in terms of research topics, technology forecast, relations between institutions or future scenarios, the SmartCulture Research Agenda underlined several challenges that shall be overcome for the further development of the Digital Cultural Heritage sector, such as the following:
• Disciplinary insularity;
• Lack of recognition of interdisciplinary and cross-sectorial research;
• Discursive barriers (e.g. between different types of institutions);
• Too much administration in terms of applying for and running research programmes;
• Processes of digitalisation of cultural heritage materials;
• Divergent timeframes within the different institutional settings;
• Available resources in relevant SMEs;
• Unstable and underdeveloped markets;
• Lack of regional political and commercial emphasis;
• Lack of specific funding possibilities.
The descriptions and evaluations of the projects and their contexts within each region formed the backdrop of the formulation of a range of specific recommendations to, respectively, policy makers, future research and to the Strategic Research Agenda. A central theme across the regions is the call for a more elaborate integration across national states/regions in terms of policies, funding schemes and selected technology applications. The aim of these recommendations is to encourage a range of commonly focused initiatives that cut across disciplinary and institutional boundaries. The major themes of the recommendations are the following:
• Cross-disciplinary, cross-sectional and cross-national infrastructures (labs, centres, projects, networks etc.);
• Coordinated policies/strategies on cultural heritage research;
• Common and open platforms for access to and experiences of cultural heritage;
• Funding opportunities tailored to digital cultural heritage projects;
• The use of European Capitals of Culture (or other cultural events) as levers in the development of Digital Cultural Heritage.
WORK PACKAGE 4 - Definition of a Joint Action Plan (JAP) and Business Plan
Objectives
Based on the previous studies, a Joint Action Plan (JAP, Deliverable 4.1) has been defined to describe the SmartCulture strategy to drive and boost regional (and European) economic development and efficiency through research, technological development, networking, synergies, recommendations for the regional research agendas, improved transnational cooperation and full exploitation of the SWOT analysis results in the field of a wide access to Culture.
A Business Plan (BP, Deliverable 4.2) including a financial guide completed this strategy by showing the different available alternatives to fund the foreseen activities and measures by taking into account existing calls at regional, national and European levels. Finally, strategic guidelines (Plan for the International and mentoring activities – Deliverable 4.3) have been drawn for accompying activities at international level such as collaboration with other cluster platforms, mentoring and exchange activities or worldwide initiatives and programmes.
Significant results
Joint Action Plan
The 8 SmartCulture regions showed evidence of different speeds in the economic and political development of the Digital Cultural Heritage field, although generally in all of them this sector is still not positioned where its whole potential could be unleashed, as engines of economic and social growth that some reports from the European Commission have been pointing out since 2010 .
However, even if the partners presented significant disparities, this diagnosis revealed many strategic similarities that will reach the project objectives. Thanks to the regional expertises, the guidelines for a common strategy in the field of Digital Cultural Heritage had been drawn and had designed a set of 9 transnational actions which could inspires not only the regions that are part of the project, but any region of Europe.
1 – INNOVATION AND NEW BUSINESS MODELS
This activity concerns the innovation in the development of new products, services and processes; in the identification of new models and avenues for collaboration in research and development projects; and in any transforming measure which allows better support for businesses and entrepreneurship in the Digital Cultural Heritage sector.
2 – KNOWLEDGE AND TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER
This activity operates at two levels. On one hand, it encourages the rational use and sharing of knowledge and technology as regards the research and the development of Digital Cultural Heritage projects (quadruple helix, public/private). On the other hand, thanks to the creation of a Digital Cultural Heritage network of experts, it supports the mentoring of less developed regions in the field.
3 – STRATEGIES AND PUBLIC POLICIES
This activity aims to encourage the design of strategies and public policies which support the Digital Cultural Heritage field within local, regional, national and European strategic agendas, as a key element in the driving force of the economy. Indeed, the SmartCulture objectives cannot be fulfilled without the involvement and the support of the policy makers. Therefore, a number of actions could expand or strengthen their policies and acknowledge their relevance as a key element in the promotion of the regional, national and European economy.
4 – TRAINING AND IMPROVEMENT OF SPECIFIC PROFILES IN THE DIGITAL CULTURAL HERITAGE FIELD
This activity promotes the development of training programs adapted to the new needs of the Digital Cultural Heritage sector. It also supports knowledge and technologies transfer and promotes regional, European and international alliances for training professionals. It emphasizes mentoring activities and increases the mobility of the stakeholders (researchers, students, professionals) between countries, companies and business-institutions, with the main objective of achieving a better balance of training in the current competitive business landscape.
5 – FINANCIAL CAPACITY AND NEW FUNDING MODELS
This activity supports the access to public / private funds, the development of new funding models and underlines a cost-reduction strategy, following the European economical situation.
6 – MORE CULTURE FOR MORE PEOPLE
This activity values the rich European cultural heritage, through the enhancement of its assets, making it accessible to citizens through technology available at all times.
7 – SMARTCULTURE BRAND
Many regions underlined the need to promote a “SmartCulture brand” to enhance their visibility on a European scale and to raise aweress of the international experts.
8- INTERNATIONALIZATION
Directly linked to the previous activity, the regions stressed the importance of the internationalization, in terms of awareness raising, knowledge transfer and economic development.
9- CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS OR VACANT BUILDINGS AS TESTLABS / SHOWROOMS / DIGITAL ART CENTRES
This action concerns the transformation of Cultural institutions, patrimony or vacant buildings into SmartCulture testlabs and showrooms. Digital Cultural Heritage would be used as a tool for social cohesion, mobility, land-use planning and sustainable development.
Business Plan
The SmartCulture Business Plan completes the Joint Action Plan by defining the responsibilities, priorities, budget lines and a schedule for the proposed actions, on the basis of existing calls at regional, national and European level which are detailed in a financial guide.
All the SmartCulture regions have underlined the importance of improving the access to public and private funding in the field of Digital Cultural Heritage. To improve this essential aspect, it is vital that the public administration becomes aware of the importance of this sector as driver of economic and social growth, and that the loan market and other forms of private financing gain confidence in the sector and refine their perception of the risk. Similarly, encouraging investment in the Digital Cultural Heritage sector will be helped by other factors such as the cross collaboration between varied organisations. In this Business Plan, a special attention has also been given to regional, national and international R&D funding programs, which represent great opportunities to the field and could be facilitated by the SmartCulture Interdisciplinary Research Agenda.
Clusters and similar associations are a catalyst for processes and networking among market players. They are a good foothold to carry out initiatives that require coordination and dialogue between entities of different sizes and profiles, notably regarding the quadruple-helix model (Business, Public Bodies, Academia & Cultural organisations).
However, some of the foreseen activities and measures require a high level of funding, when infrastructures, training or promotion are needed. This has compelled us to point out the risks and propose reasonable alternatives to ensure the achievement of the objectives. In some regions such as Eindhoven, West Midlands and Midtjylland, financial capacity is stronger, and in such cases the search for improvements focuses on private funding.
With regards to the time horizon, the SmartCulture Business Plan projects a balanced distribution of short, medium and long-term activities. Therefore, in the global map of action implementation, there should be no problem in creating an evenly distributed work load for the next 5 years and to ensure the sustainability of the activities. The underlying objective is to lay a firm foundation to ensure the strengthening of the Digital Cultural Heritage in the long run.
Finally, the successful implementation of this Business Plan will ultimately depend on the level of commitment of the stakeholders who have the capacity to cause a structural change in the Digital Cultural Heritage at regional and European levels.
Plan for the International and mentoring activities
At the early stages of the SmartCulture Project, the plan for the international and mentoring activities was designated to enhance the comparative advantages of the local economy and to stimulate creativity and enterprise. The consortium structure was considered to have a high potential to create strong mutual learning effects and to provide mentoring to less-developed regions (intra- and inter-cluster mentoring). Indeed, the SmartCulture consortium represents a mix of well to less developed regions, which face different challenges due to their different economic development. It has been built around the expert knowledge of the leading innovative and mature research-driven clusters that will transfer technical and organisational knowledge through mentoring to other participating clusters. Therefore, it is a perfect opportunity to exchange experience and engage in peer review and mentoring activities.
In addition to the mentoring activities which take place within the SmartCulture consortium in the 8 regions, partners underlined the increasing need for internationalization and specific training dedicated to the professionals in the field of Digital Cultural Heritage, as it can be considered at many levels as being the new driver for a smart, sustainable and inclusive development. In this context, international mentoring and exchange activities with other regions and countries seem to be critical components of the development of the next generation of highly qualified profesionnals.
Therefore, the Plan for the International and mentoring activities presents:
• the needs of the Consortium in terms of mentoring activities and how the less-developed research profile could benefit from highly developed ones through mutual mentoring (Innovation, Training, European Capitals of Culture candidacies...);
• examples of existing mentoring activities in the field of Digital Cultural Heritage (dissemination, training, research, services to business, awards and contests...);
• a list of mentoring activities that could be implemented with identified clusters (services to SMEs, events and marketplace, collaborative projects, common platform, Open data...);
• a plan for the integration of SmartCulture with worldwide initiatives such as UNESCO;
• strategic guidelines of the Plan for international and mentoring activities.
STAGE 3 – IMPLEMENTATION AND ACCOMPANYING MEASURES
WORK PACKAGE 5 - Capacity building and cluster area activation
Objectives
The SmartCulture Consortium followed up on the impact analysis of cultural innovation on the development, the accumulation and the expansion of human potential. Current state of play and future requirements with regard to human resources (qualification, skills...) development perspectives, strategic goals and action lines to be pursued in the future have been described. The partner regions then translated capacity building processes in the context of SmartCulture, on regional operational levels, with the help of Joint Activation of Regional Cluster Areas activities and Best Practice Study Tours. In order to support the creation of cluster-based communities of practice and promote the Joint Action Plan, the Consortium provided models – taking the form of pilot-actions – that can be flexibly reproduced and adjusted in other specific local contexts.
Significant results
State of the art of capacity building practices (Deliverable 5.1)
A human potential analysis has been run in the 8 SmartCulture regions and underlines that over the past five years Cultural and Creative Industries and Information and Communication Technology have become an important factor of growth for the SmartCulture regions.
Consequently, the employment patterns and growth in the sector has been driven by the expansion of entrepreneurship and innovation. New job profiles have emerged and the Digital Cultural Heritage professionals have become multi-skilled, integrating different forms of artistic/creative/technological competences, as well as tranversal skills like autonomy, project management or sales to support the transdisciplinarity of the sector.
Digital Cultural Heritage demonstrates strong employment dynamics, particularly in the areas of multimedia and software. These two sub-sectors are those with the greatest demand for content and creativity and therefore represent the best employment opportunities for entrepreneurs in the creative industries. However, the field has been challenged by the economic crisis which increased significantly the number of small and micro businesses, as well as self-employed/freelancers. The uncertainty of the market and the employment instability make them at the same time: vulnerable to external changes and political decisions; and more reactive/adaptable to the market thanks to the profile of the professionals (young, mobile, and community driven ...).
In order to address these challenges, the sector responded by investing in R&D, by increasing the collaboration between public-private actors, by building triple helix ecosystems (centres, labs, incubation networks...) by designing new business opportunities beyond Europe. The SmartCulture regions have observed the growing need for entrepreneurship (business models, ability to search for private funding, to access the international market...) and languages skills.
The development and enactment of specific policies and funding opportunities have in some regions trailed behind, following upon the trend, instead of creating a favourable environment for the sector [in the case of Bulgaria, a national strategy for the development of the Creative and Cultural Industries is still pending]. In addition, the unprecedented “boom” of the area provoked a skill-gap between the graduate pool and the professionals needed. The regions are threatened of a deficit of skilled workers which could jeopardize their growth.
The SmartCulture consortium has identified several innovative training programs aiming at reducing the disparities and at completing the education currently provided by universities and schools: business training and workshops for professionals, fablabs for peer mentoring, lifelong learning, e-learning platforms, exchange of workshop and knowledge, specialised Digital Cultural Heritage training... The examples of practices provided by the 8 regions are a good indicator of the collaborative efforts between traditional cultural heritage institutions such as museums and libraries, with software development companies, media, digital apps, etc. In terms of developing human potential, such initiatives have led to improve the technical skills, knowledge, and experiences of cultural heritage in the relevant audiences.
Across the territories, it can be observed a growing use of digital technology products for learning (for example in the regions of Siena, Sofia, and Nord-Pas de Calais) and closer cooperation between publicly funded research institutions and business actors (e.g. Muzeiko in the region of Sofia). These practices confirm the trends expressed in the previous SmartCulture reports and already usher innovative workspaces, events, training and experiences. However, lacks remain especially regarding business services, policies/strategies or funding opportunities. Further actions are needed to create a fruitful ecosystem for innovative training activities and cross-sectoral education initiatives to secure a pipeline of young skilled professionals.
Based on the data provided, it can be expected that in the next 5-10 years the Digital Cultural Heritage sector will generate significant number of jobs in the regions, with a positive influence on the education and employment systems. However, the current economic environment increases the disparities between the well-developed clusters (e.g. France, Spain, UK) and catch-up regions (e.g. Bulgaria) which will prevent the Digital Cultural Heritage sector to become a large scale employer in the countries concerned.
Communities of practice
Based on the previous study, the SmartCulture Consortium translated on an operational level capacity building processes in the context of the SmartCulture framework through Joint Activation of Regional Cluster Areas (JARCA – Deliverable 5.2) workshops, as well as mentoring activities through Best Practice Study Tours for Competence Building and networking. Each SmartCulture region organised one or several JARCA workshops to “activate” its regional Quadruple Helix ecosystem.
In total, 12 JARCA activities from various kinds (PTS Committee, Business Meetups, Conferences) have been organised in the 8 SmartCulture regions, gathering 85 renowned speakers and 481 participants from 191 organisations.
As a second step and based on targeted interviews to key players, the SmartCulture Consortium has designed the SmartCulture Social Learning Base which could help Digital Cultural Heritage stakeholders to seek help from experts, to be tutored by peers, to market watch and seize the new business opportunities, to share knowledge and skills.
The Physical and Virtual labs implemented through the Best Practice Study Tours for Competence Building (Deliverable 5.3) have been organized at regional level within the regional clusters and involved the regional key players, but also at European level through workshops and experience exchange events put in place in the framework of the WP6 “Benchmarking and Mutual Mentoring”.
Implementation of pilot forms of cluster-based communities of practice (Deliverable 5.4)
The preliminary work has enabled the Consortium to gather enough expertise to highlight eight pilot actions currently implemented in each SmartCulture region with the help of a promotional brochure, which could efficiently promote the SmartCulture Joint Action Plan towards specific target groups and especially Public Authorities, and provide models that can be flexibly reproduced and adjusted in other specific local contexts.
Tools created
Virtual Best Practice Study Tours
In complement to the Physical Best Practice Study Tours, the need for a virtual platform to showcase SmartCulture best practices and reach a wider audience has been underlined. Typically a study tour is a physical visit to a specific location. However, organizing actual study tours to visit many different locations is an extremely time consuming and expensive effort.
To cope with this challenge, the Consortium has found a way for each region to present any number of Best Practices without the necessity for all the other partners to pay actual visits to the region. Therefore, the creation of a Virtual Study Tours (VST) provides a new way of discussing the concept of study tours and has led to the development of a dynamic platform that can evolve over time.
This platform was integrated into the SmartCulture website and can be accessed here: http://www.smartculture.eu/content/virtual-tours
Brochure “New Technologies and Digital Growth in Cultural and Creative Industries: 8 case studies”
As a strategy to achieve maximum impact of the selected pilot actions to the SmartCulture targeted audiences (ICT and CCI businesses, research stakeholders, policy makers, academia, cultural institutions and general public), the Consortium decided to design a classic promotional and communication element . 1.000 paper copies of this brochure were distributed across Europe.
WORK PACKAGE 6 - Benchmarking and Mutual Mentoring
Objectives
SmartCulture partners identified cases of good practice across clusters to enhance the competitiveness of the European Digital Cultural Heritage sectors vis-à-vis global competitors through a benchmarking of research-driven Digital Cultural Heritage clusters; and developed a mutual mentoring process, international cluster activities and meta-cluster structures.
Significant results
Benchmarking and Self Assessment (Deliverable 6.2)
The SmartCulture Consortium intended to frame effective interactive processes so that people - whether they are technicians, political, scientific or cultural actors - can valorise and share their practices and skills through participation in the exchanges and experiences events organised by the SmartCulture project.
As a first step, each SmartCulture region proceeded to a self-assessment and benchmarked who were the trainers and the trainees within the consortium, in order to build a serie of physical interactions at workshops, presentations, discussion sessions and visits to develop new levels of complexity with regards to collaborative work and interactions between SmartCulture partners themselves and their network of stakeholders.
On the basis of these results, three main subjects and the subsequent three workshops were designed. These joint trainings took place in the framework of (at least) 3-day physical meetings which included different activities such as best practice study tours and mutual mentoring in three of the partners’ locations:
• Collaboration workshop, held in Birmingham (West Midlands, UK) from the 20th to the 22ndst of May 2015
• Policy workshop, held in Aarhus (Midtjylland, Denmark) from the 24th to the 26th of June 2015
• Ecosystems workshop, held in Nord-Pas de Calais region from the 26th of September to the 02nd of October 2015
Staff exchanges, Joint Trainings & Mutual Mentoring for the implementation of Meta-Cluster structures (Deliverable 6.1 and 6.3)
As stated above, the 8 SmartCulture regions engaged in staff exchanges on the basis of a beneficial exchange of experience between good practice regions and learning regions. Good practices were used for regions advancements and specific training needs necessary to catch up with global standards. The use of case studies and concrete, tangible examples has proven to be an excellent way to convey best practices from one region to another. The examples identified by the trainers helped the trainees understand activities, processes and policies, easy to compare and transpose to their local contexts.
The three Experience Exchange Events – Collaboration, Policy and Ecosystems – included demonstrations sessions, focus groups with local stakeholders, company visits and university visits, with a view of showing:
• the business community and the state of the technology used;
• the institutional and policy infrastructure;
• the quality of the research and innovation capacity.
By fostering European collaboration between the 8 SmartCulture regions, the Consortium has defined and implemented a European Meta-Cluster platform for digital cultural clusters (Deliverable 6.4). In other words, the Consortium shaped a quadruple helix model Meta-Cluster – based on the 8 regional Meta-Clusters - that responds to the interests and needs of all active stakeholders in Digital Cultural Heritage field in order to gain excellence in knowledge transfer, networking and competitiveness.
The International SmartCulture Week and Final Conference
From September 26th to October 2nd 2015, EuraTechnologies located in Lille (France), organised a one week workshop aiming to present a review of the project and to address the next challenges of the Digital Cultural Heritage market.
At this occasion, 450 participants from 10 countries attended the 14 workshops&conferences in 5 different locations (Lille Metropole, Valenciennes, Lens, Calais, Mons). The event questioned the chances and challenges of new technologies (Data, Digital Trust, Holography, Fingerprinting...) to unlock the treasures of our cultural heritage for a wide audience, in the presence of representatives from the European Commission, and renown speakers from Europeana, Living Labs Germany, Irights, ADAGP.
The International SmartCulture Week has stimulated the collaborationbetween ICT enterprises, creative and cultural organizations and research institutes from Europe and beyond, building a new network of organizations, specialised in the application of digital media to cultural heritage. The goal was also for the 7 other SmartCulture regions to learn from the Ecosystem build in the Region Nord - Pas de Calais and to discover former and actual European Capitals of Culture, lille3000 and Mons2015 (Belgium).
Tools created
Meta-Cluster Google Map
After identifying and inventorying regional Meta-Clusters with the help of the previous SmartCulture studies (SWOT, JAP, Inventory ...) SmartCulture partners mapped the mix component such as infrastructure and existing projects on an open and free tool - Google map - in order to get a global overview of each SmartCulture Meta-Cluster based on the Quadruple Helix Ecosystem model: Academic/Scientific, Political, Business and the fourth helix: Societal Participation. Then, the 8 Google maps merged into one to engage further clusters – unifying them across Europe as a European SmartCulture Meta-Cluster.
The task demonstrated the need for a resource that could unify, promote and engage further with the consortium (Inward) and further activity internationally (Outward).
WORK PACKAGE 7 - Communication and Dissemination
Objectives
The focus of the WP7 has been the dissemination and transfer of knowledge to the regional and national stakeholders involved in the project and to the overall target group of the project results, cluster managers, business associations, research centres and policymakers at local, regional, national and European level.
Significant results
Dissemination Plan (Deliverable 7.1)
A Dissemination Plan has been designed to promote the project outcomes and to stimulate linkages and cooperation among regions and sectors, creating a SmartCulture European platform that fostered creativity, social impact, and economic growth with the help of specific tools such as a website, a blog, promotional videos, social media platforms, brochures, newsletters or presentations.
Communication tools created (Deliverable 7.2)
SmartCulture website
The project website attracted 18.318 visits and recorded 3927 downloads. It has acted as a powerful promotional tool for boosting the information flow. It was created at the beginning of the project and animated by each partner region, accessible under the following link www.smartculture.eu . The website provides access to news, project updates, blogs, project results, best practices, virtual study tours and current events related to the development of the SmartCulture project.
Social Media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn
The SmartCulture Consortium has built virtual communities on social Media platforms to achieve greater dissemination to a variety of target groups through LinkedIn , Facebook and Twitter platforms. Moreover, partners used their own channels to promote SmartCulture findings, events and news. Accumulated number of people reached by the project and the partners via social media channels is: 74 903 people.
Contact database
During the last 3 years, SmartCulture enhanced a network of 2525 professionals in the Digital Cultural Heritage field, mostly from the 8 partner regions but also from Germany, Belgium, USA, Brazil, South Africa, India or Australia. The SmartCulture partners involved their regional stakeholders and international partners in different phases of the project, from analysis and studies to action and practice.
Newsletters
Six newsletters have been produced and distributed during the lifetime of the project. Containing more information than the project brochures, short electronic newsletters were created to inform and stimulate key stakeholders. Their objectives were not only to inform readers about the project itself, but also to be a relay of the website. Newsletter sections included:
• editorial, focus on (interview of a special guest/expert),
• news across Europe, what’s going on (in SmartCulture partner regions),
• upcoming events (inside and outside the consortium),
• latest results (information about other complementing projects),
• case study sheets,
• presentation of consortium members and contacts.
Interested parties could subscribe to the newsletter on the project’s website. In total the newsletter holds 195 subscribers. The newsletters were issued on a six-month basis. In addition to the subscribers, the newsletters have been sent to the regional stakeholders from the SmartCulture regions, reaching out 4867 experts across Europe.
Videos
Three videos have been produced to promote and disseminate the outcomes of the SmartCulture project:
- Movie #1: produced at the start of the project, set out the aims and objectives of SmartCulture;
- Movie #2: gave a mid-term overview of what the project had achieved so far and focussed on sharing good practices from the eight regions;
- Movie #3: presented the outcomes, facts and figures of the SmartCulture project.
The promotional videos were presented during events, such as the SmartCulture Mid-term Conference (Brussels, June 2014) and the International SmartCulture Week (Lille, September 2015) and local events such as the PTS Committees. The movies are available online, on the SmartCulture website: www.smartculture.eu and on vimeo (https://vimeo.com/127143558 https://vimeo.com/79302497/ and https://vimeo.com/147300826).
Brochures
6 370 copies of 4 SmartCulture brochures have been produced and distributed within the SmartCulture project :
- A general project brochure: to introduce the project to stakeholders during events and meetings. This brochure was designed in a PDF format, in order for each partner to print as many brochures as needed, but also to distribute digitally. The brochure reflected the existence and the purpose of the project. The goal was to make stakeholders aware of the project, of the website and of the procedures on how to contact the SmartCulture consortium. It was handed to all project partners in order to ensure a widespread dissemination. Throughout the project over 5.000 general project brochures have been distributed.
- A Mid-term conference brochure: distributed to the conference participants, dedicated for dissemination before and during the conference. Next to the conference’s programme, explanatory texts on the project were showcased.
- New Technologies and Digital Growth in Cultural and Creative Industries - 8 Case Studies: produced in the framework of the work package 5 for the promotion of the Joint Action Plan to showcase 8 SmartCulture case studies in each partner region. 1000 copies were printed and distributed amongst the partners for dissemination.
- The International SmartCulture Week programme: the final SmartCulture event programme has been distributed to the event participants. 300 copies were printed.
Fairs, exhibitions, Conferences
In order to communicate and disseminate the SmartCulture project results, the SmartCulture partners organised 69 events gathering 1789 participants (3 Workshop Events, 44 Political Technical Scientic Committes, 12 Joint Activation of Regional Cluster Areas activities, 3 experience exchange events, 10 internal periodic meetings) and participated to 94 events in 20 different countries across the world. These events – lectures, meetings, discussions, networking, trade missions or conferences - enabled all partners to disseminate on a wider-scale the promotional materials created for the project and consequently, to further involve local stakeholders and organisations in the SmartCulture framework. It also fostered connections with other Digital Cultural Heritage networks such as Europeana Foundation or ENCATC, as well as other European projects such as ECULT or MESCH.
Dissemination to selected target groups & Foreground activities (Deliverable 7.3)
Target groups have been selected in each region to reach a maximum impact and efficiency in the short and mid-term within the key audiences of the SmartCulture project including public authorities, industries and businesses, users, clusters and networks, researchers and universities, private financing, policy makers. These stakeholders have been divided in four main groups to optimize dissemination according to each group peculiarities, needs and communication codes:
Supported by a contact database gathering 2525 professionals from the Digital Cultural Heritage sector across the SmartCulture regions and beyond, the Consortium developed an action plan for communication and dissemination of results, including the following means for each group:
With the help of key performance indicators, partners tracked the evolution and results of these activities which clearly went beyond expectations. In total, the Consortium has inventoried at the end of the project 18 318 visitors for the website, 74 903 followers/likes/posts on the social medias, 997 viewers for the promotional videos, 6370 recipients for the 4 project brochures, 4867 for the 6 newsletters and 1789 participants over the 69 SmartCulture events.
However, the 8 partner regions and the 13 Consortium members wish to pursue this new dynamic and to capitalise on the work done by continuing the results’ dissemination, especially towards public authorities for the design of specific policies in favor of the Digital Cultural Heritage Sector, and academia for the design of new research projects and training programmes which could create a fruitful network for the next generation of professionals. A common publication about the concept of SmartCulture Economy is currently designed by the University of Birmingham (UK) and the Università di comunicazione e lingue (Italy) and will be published in August 2016.
Press releases, articles and publications
The project issued 4 press releases to disseminate the outcomes of the SmartCulture project:
- SmartCulture Kick-off: the first press release was produced in January 2013, announcing the project’s kick-off. The document expressed the aims and objectives of the project and introduced the partners of the Consortium.
- Mid-Term Conference: released in June 2014 at the occasion of the Mid-term conference.
- International SmartCulture Week 2015: issued in October 2015 to disseminate the facts and figures of the last SmartCulture event.
- SmartCulture achievements: facts and figures of the 3-year project.
The press releases were published on the SmartCulture website and were sent to 2976 press contacts across Europe. Besides over 16 press articles and 5 press videos were published in European media and one interview was broadcasted by the Bulgarian National Radio on 13th of August 2013.
In addition to the common press releases and to the press articles, the Consortium members also published regularly blogs and posts on the website and social media of their own organisations (over 250 articles as reflected by the KPIs – Deliverable 7.3).
Free accessible channels were also used, such as the open access tools provided by the EC: CORDIS, Academia.eu and Openaire in order to disseminate the project’s results.
WORK PACKAGE 8 - Internationalisation activities and strategies with third countries
Objectives
After activating regional and European Digital Cultural Heritage ecosystems, the SmartCulture Consortium elaborated internationalisation strategies aiming at exchanging experiences and skills with interesting partners from Third Countries and notably regions such as the Minas Gerais (Brazil), Tokyo and Kyoto (Japan), Boston and Silicon Valley (USA), Delhi and Bombay (India).
Significant results
Cooperation models and maps beyond Europe (Deliverable 8.1)
As part of the first phase of the SmartCulture internationalisation activities and strategies with third countries, all partners had to identify and inventory its cooperation models with European and third countries. The goal was to identify converging areas and to capitalise on existing models to widen the SmartCulture scope and End-User Advisory board. The cooperation models analysed were deliberately varied (trade, culture, development, tourism, education) in order to allow the SmartCulture Consortium to define a transversal international strategy and to evaluate its added-value for the Digital Cultural Heritage.
The analysis has underlined the growing importance of Digital Cultural Heritage on the global framework. Projects and varied research perspectives are blossoming all around the world; and many countries like Brazil, China, South Korea, Israel, or South Africa are now developing leading-edge knowledge and competences in the field, competing with the world’s leaders: Japan, India or the USA. Consequently, international relations are evolving and becoming more complex and sophisticated, which usher the market and policies to evolve to keep up.
The majority of existing cooperation models is merely based on bilateral cooperation, for its simplicity and its ability to easily adapt the terms of the agreement. However, for the past 5 years, the will of the European commission to build stronger relationships with Third countries has led the member states to foster multilateral models, with the help of EU funded projects, networks, international events or cross sectorial research communities.
Multilateralism is without doubt an added value for the Digital Cultural Heritage sector. The SmartCulture project is a perfect example of the importance of multicentric studies led by various stakeholders, as the field necessitates at the same time transversality and transdisciplinarity.
Internationalisation strategies of SmartCulture (Deliverable 8.2)
By applying the international strategy mapping and structuring the international network, the SmartCulture Consortium has initiated connections with 48 countries all around the world through 19 workshops and expertise meetings, the creation of a virtual platform for networking and knowledge exchange, as well as technical and political recommendation for the digital European agenda.
New areas – for example Africa or Australia - have been stimulated and demonstrate a huge potential for further cooperation in the Digital Cultural Heritage field. A new community of experts with varied competences and backgrounds (Cultural institutions, Researchers, Academies, Businesses, Public Authorities) started to exchange information, staff and experiences and have shown a strong will to collaborate to overcome local or global challenges.
The performed activities also underlined the importance of a bottom up approach to define new methods and strategies towards the Digital Cultural Heritage sector, which could support European growth and competitiveness. However, as seen in the 5 Political and Technical Recommendations provided to the Consortium, a solid base of common methods, rules and regulations remains necessary from the European Union to go from quadruple to multiple helix cooperation models and help European citizens to liberate their innovation potentials.
The European Union’s strategy, and more specifically its Horizon2020 and Creative Europe programmes, demonstrates rich opportunities to experiment new practices, which could ensure the sustainability of the Digital Cultural Heritage sector and pursue the promotion of the European expertise on the global market.
Tools created
Virtual platform for exchanging experiences and information
SmartCulture addresses a relatively new area of expertise, a niche market where digital meets culture and where professionals with varied competences are working together. To stimulate the networking and cross-fertilization between these sectors, the SmartCulture Consortium set up a virtual platform for exchanging experiences, knowledge and contacts. The objective was to create a sustainable cross-sectoral network of international stakeholders.
After listing and evaluating the SmartCulture tools already designed and activated, the SmartCulture LinkedIn network platform has been selected to become the WP8 virtual platform. This decision was made considering the conditions (need for sustainability, lack of budget to create or maintain an additional platform) and the fact that LinkedIn already offers excellent network opportunities, being the professional social media channel actually used by many of our stakeholders - Cultural organizations, businesses (ICT, CCI), academies and research centers, public authorities and user communities worldwide.
The SmartCulture LinkedIn platform gathers 130 members from 14 countries in Europe and beyond - such as Argentina, US, Canada and Israel – which are potentially connected to more than 45 000 professionals worldwide.
Technical and political recommendation as regards an international strategy for the digital European agenda
In order to facilitate the design of an international strategy for the European Digital Agenda, the SmartCulture consortium gathered Political and Technical recommendations from the partner regions as regards the Digital Cultural Heritage sector. Thanks to a bottom up approach, the formulated recommendations propose concrete solutions which could overcome the global challenges in order to:
• face the global competition,
• take advantage of new developments, techniques and expanding markets,
• show the opportunities of culture as a lever of growth.
Many questions have been raised - How can European SME’s and cultural organisations get involved and profit from internationalisation? How to prevent the brain drain? How to usher cooperation and knowledge transfer between sectors? How to share and experiment new methods to foster pull factors? and a set of five main recommendations did result from the discussions, addressing the following topics:
• Economy
• Cooperation
• Knowledge Transfer
• Methods
• Pull factors
Potential Impact:
First, from many aspects, the SmartCulture project can be seen as a large-scale Digital Cultural Heritage benchmark as it has identified and inventoried:
• Stakeholders and infrastructures;
• Strenghths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats;
• Research initiatives and priorities;
• Actions to be held and financial opportunities to be found;
• Good practices;
• Internationalisation strategies.
By opening up the hidden social and economic potential of the Digital Cultural Heritage sector, the 13 SmartCulture partners have underlined new market opportunities which could contribute to European growth and competitiveness.
Secondly, through the implementation and accompanying measures, the 8 partner regions have fostered the quadruple helix relationships and crossfertilization, which significally increased exchange, dialogue, knowledge transfer and networking on regional, European and international levels. In addition, the Political, Technical and Scientific Committees’ meetings organised in each region have been particularly efficient in building an innovation friendly ecosystem by creating a strong and multi-disciplinary End-User Advisory Board for strategic purposes. Regional participants have directed the work to be performed and seized its opportunities by planning future initiatives and building smart specialization strategies (as it is the case in Basque Country and Sofia regions for instance).
Thirdly, the pilot actions implemented in each region and promoted through the brochure “New Technologies and Digital Growth in Cultural and Creative Industries: 8 case studies”, as well as the political and technical recommendations provided by key players as regards the Digital Agenda, will most certainly have a long-term impact as they can be replicated in any local environment across Europe and beyond, which will consequently increase the number of Digital Cultural Heritage projects and impact on the quality life of culturally diverse citizens.
Finally, the SmartCulture results will also be used by Academia for the design of new research projects and training programmes which could create a fruitful network for the next generation of professionals. New research perspectives will also result be published: a common publication about the concept of SmartCulture Economy is currently designed by the University of Birmingham (UK) and the Università di comunicazione e lingue (Italy) and will be published in August 2016.
The SMARTCULTURE project has developed a core set of indicators that are instrumental in measuring the expected impacts towards the Work Program. In this way, the Consortium has evaluated its actions by following criteria that cover the economic and the social aspects both on regional and European levels.
The SmartCulture project aimed to set up a new network of research driven clusters in Europe specialized in the cultural sector, and in particular, in the application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to Cultural Heritage. The project will focus on the use of ICT technologies in order to empower citizens to become actively involved in their access to cultural heritage and cultural resources.
The following items representing the expected impacts of the Regions of Knowledge projects have been considered as the starting point in the definition of SmartCulture indicators:
1- Boosting the competiveness of research-driven clusters in the domains of Research Agenda and resource efficient technologies Europe-wide and globally, unlocking new business opportunities for participating SMEs.
2- Build sustainable partnerships between academia and business within clusters and transnational across clusters and regions, facilitating the knowledge transfer from academia to business in order to develop novel services, products and processes.
3- Contribution to the development of smart specialisation strategies of regions through R&D and Innovation in the field of Research Agenda and resource efficient technologies.
4- New private and public investments in R&D and Innovation at regional level driven by regional strategies based on business needs and an integrated Joint Action Plan, access to finance facilitated for SMEs, synergies created with other EU and national funding sources.
5- Create an innovation friendly ecosystem in the regions through close and sustainable collaboration and networking between universities, research centres, business, local policy makers and other stakeholders.
6- Include more European regions into the European Research Area (ERA) while involving relevant regional stakeholder for the design of research agendas.
✓ Expected economic impact:
European cultural and creative industries (CCI) are global leaders and competitive exporters in a wide range of fields. Not only they are a key partner in the creation of the European identity, but they have become an economic sector with an important growth rate. As stated in the Priority Sector Report Creative and Cultural Industries, there is a strong relationship between the existence of creative and cultural industries and regional prosperity.
In 2007, the Commission proposed a European agenda for culture. Among the broad objectives, it was clearly recognized that cultural industries and the creative sector were a substantial contributor to the European GDP, growth and employment. Following one of the conclusions of the communication, SmartCulture explored and promoted the role of culture in supporting and fostering creativity and innovation at regional and European level.
Creativity is the basis for social and technological innovation, and therefore an important driver of growth, competitiveness and jobs in the EU.
Recently, many studies have shown that the cultural and creative industries represent highly innovative companies with a great economic potential and are one of Europe's most dynamic sectors, contributing around 2.6 % to the EU GDP, with a high growth potential, and providing quality jobs to around 5 million people across EU-27. A green paper of April 2010 on Unlocking the potential of cultural and creative industries gives requirements of a creative environment for Europe’s CCIs (Creative and Cultural Industries), covering areas necessary to effectively unlock their potential, in particular at the European level, from 350 answers from public authorities, the general public and civil society bodies – including companies – active in the cultural field across Europe.
Combined with globalisation, the speed at which digital information and communication technologies (ICTs) are being developed and deployed greatly impacts all sectors of CCIs. While it does create opportunities in terms of the scope of production and distribution, it also changes the traditional production and consumption models and comes with huge adaptation costs, in particular relating to the digital shift. To be able to provide a culturally diverse offer of services to customers, entrepreneurs must be given appropriate framework conditions.
The SmartCulture project proposed new opportunities and good practices for innovative digital access to cultural resources, digital cultural mediation, cultural democratization and sustainable access to cultural heritage to a wider range of users.
Thanks to the cross fertilisation enhanced by the Consortium and to the events organised at regional and European level, the project has also stimulated the collaboration between ICT enterprises, creative and cultural organizationsand research institutes from Europe and beyond, building a new network of professionals, specialised in the application of digital media to cultural heritage.
✓ Expected social impact
Culture lies at the heart of human development and civilisation. Culture can be summarised as a set of distinctive spiritual and material traits that characterize a society and social group. It embraces literature and arts as well as ways of life, value systems, traditions and beliefs. Indeed, Europeans share a common Cultural Heritage, and enjoy and value a rich cultural and linguistic diversity.
As stated in the Communication on a European agenda for culture in a globalising world, the EU has a unique role to play in promoting its cultural richness and diversity both in Europe and worldwide.
The EU Work Plan for Culture 2011-2014 highlights the importance to identify policies and good practices of public arts and cultural institutions to promote better access to and wider participation in culture, including by disadvantaged groups and groups experiencing poverty and social exclusion, according to the objectives of the European Agenda for Culture and requirements from the Lisbon Treaty.
One priority of Europe 2020 strategy is smart growth that by means of so-called flagship initiatives would allow improving three targeted sectors: education with a view to encouraging people to learn, study and update their skills, research/innovation enabling the creation of new products/services that generate growth and jobs and help address social challenges and digital society by using information and communication technologies.
The SmartCulture project directly contributed to smart growth through the flagship initiative “Digital Agenda for Europe”. Indeed beyond the cultural issues, SmartCulture also contributed to reach the Digital Agenda for Europe (DAE) priority to boost “smart, sustainable and inclusive growth” in:
• Strengthening research, technological development and innovation in the digital culture sector;
• Enhancing access to, and use and quality of, information and communication, with cultural e-services targeted to disadvantaged social groups and/or areas;
• Promoting social inclusion through lifelong learning and cultural resources for knowledge and long run impact;
• Providing 5 recommendations as regards an international strategy for the DAE.
✓ Evaluation of SmartCulture indicators/ estimated impacts
The evolution of the indicators has been evaluated two times during the project duration corresponding to the 2 Periods: from month 1 to month 18 and from month 19 to month 36. The intermediary evaluation only served to monitoring the progress of the project’s objectives, because the indicators were elaborated in the perspective of being reached only at the end of the project.
As mentioned in Deliverable 1.2 there are besides within the 11 indicators defined by the project, two quantitative ones which are extremely delicate to estimate and which are difficult to evaluate at this moment. These are the indicators SI4 and SI5, representing the amount of the funding from regions. As an example the Smart Specialization Strategy for Nord-Pas de Calais Region has an overall budget of 203 millions euros, however no specific budget is allowed to each of the 6 broad areas. Two of these areas could concerns the SmartCulture field, but as each project will be funded independently, the amount given is an estimation which could potentially not be applied in reality.
The results achieved during 3 years by the project’s partners were measured and we concluded that the SmartCulture regions have reached and gone beyond its set indicators, which confirm the impact on the SmartCulture activities and the growing importance of the Digital Cultural Heritage field across Europe and beyond.
List of Websites:
For more information : http://www.smartculture.eu/
Discover best practices in the Digital Cultural Heritage field : http://smartculture.projects.cavi.au.dk/VirtualStudyTours/
Join SmartCulture community on LinkedIn : www.linkedin.com/grp/home?gid=5059379
Watch the last SmartCulture video : https://vimeo.com/147300826
The SmartCulture project is a coordination and support action (CSA) aiming to provide a sustainable access to cultural heritage and to unlock the treasures of our cultural heritage for a wider audience by using digital technologies.
The Consortium consists in 13 partners from 8 European regions, some of them being leaders for Information & Communication and Creative and Cultural industries and all of them having strong relationships to European Capitals of Culture (ECoCs).
The use of ICT tools will help to transform passive audiences into active practitioners of culture. Fostering culture in such ways also offers business opportunities and innovative impetus.
For achieving this goal, the SmartCulture consortium promote the creation of engaging digital experiences for access to cultural resources by the cross fertilization between ICT enterprises, Creative and Cultural Industries (CCIs, SMEs mainly) and research stakeholders across the eight European regions.
This approach leads to new opportunities and good practices for innovative digital access to cultural resources and digital culture mediation.
Project Context and Objectives:
Launched in December 2012 at EuraTechnologies in Nord-Pas de Calais region (France), SmartCulture is a 3 year-project based on transnational cooperation between 13 partners from 8 European regions sharing a common interest in culture, heritage and ICTs issues and willing to shape the future developments in the sector of Digital Culture.
The 8 partner regions benefit from high population densities, rich cultural heritage, as well as a strong dynamic in contents production. Some regions are even European leaders towards Information & Communication Technologies and Creative and Cultural Industries. Finally, all of the participants involved in the SmartCulture project have a strong relationship to European Capitals of Culture (ECoC) wheter previous winners or candidates.
Aiming to provide a sustainable access to cultural heritage to a wider range of users through digital technologies, SmartCulture project promoted the creation of engaging digital experiences which transform passive audiences into active practitioners.
For this purpose, the Consortium strengthened the territorial and transnational cross fertilizations between ICT enterprises, Creative and Cultural Industries (especially SMEs) and research stakeholders across Europe by encouraging mutual learning and mutual mentoring: professionals’ mobility, knowledge exchange and technology transfer, experience sharing to promote and increase capacities and market accessibility etc. In this attempt, the project specifically:
• ENHANCED the change of paradigm from culture 1.0 to 3.0 empowering active communities of practices.
• FOSTERED relationships between Cultural Heritage institutions, researchers, public authorities and businesses to create partnerships, enlarging the visibility and accessibility of Cultural Heritage collections and sites.
• PROVIDED opportunities to open up the hidden social and economic potential of Cultural Heritage through the use of digital technologies, but also to impact on the quality life of culturally diverse citizens.
• PROMOTED the creation of engaging digital experiences for access to cultural resources
• LED to new market opportunities and good practices for innovative digital access to cultural resources and digital cultural mediation.
In other words, SmartCulture aimed to build collectively positive inter-territorial agendas in which citizens may be able to recognize themselves, to contribute and participate actively in a knowledge-based societal paradigm. Reinforced by the digital age, these dimensions are indeed even more challenging and necessary to take into account. In the context of globalization, interdependences between people and countries are stronger and complex issues to tackle in our frames of development. But it represents above all the opportunities of creating new forms of interactions, partnerships and cooperation. Considering the human person’s empowerment and capabilities, at the center of these development issues, the concepts of “learning territories” or “Regions of Knowledge” from a cultural based approach, can be seen as “Smart” territories opened to transformations, building new kind of synergies between people, public authorities and private actors.
In this context it appears that in order to guarantee and ensure responsibility for the effectiveness of the project, better synergy between competencies should be found; therefore cross fertilization based on the quadruple helix model is recommended for linking up interactions between:
- Private companies: ICT and digital sector, Companies producing goods and services called cultural, creative industries, start-up creating products which interfere (or participate) with cultural life (especially the tourism-related businesses);
- Research organization and Academia: Universities, research centers and other for RTD entities. This helix also generally includes non-governmental (NGOs) and other non-profit organizations.
- Public bodies and institutions;
- Taking into account the Cultural 3.0 paradigm, is now recognized a 4th helix Civil persons or Social community. Indeed Cultural heritages’ actual recipients are always people, alone or together through communities, through organizations, institutions and various structures to which they participate.
In this context the SmartCulture Consortium has tackled six strategic missions to achieve during the duration of the project:
1- Analyze the RTD development and the needs of the Cultural sector towards the SmartCulture initiative.
2- Develop a Joint Action Plan and a Digital Culture Agenda among the participating regions.
3- Transfer knowledge and good practices to regions with a less developed research profile in ICT and Cultural Heritage innovation and strengthen their capacity to set up and develop regional research-driven clusters.
4- Promote synergies and catalyze links between public administrations, research institutions and the local business actors involved in the cultural clusters to enhance transversal dialogues between quadruple helix target groups.
5- Foster the transnational and cross-border co-operations between the actors, the mutual mentoring and mutual learning.
6- Develop and enhance internationalization of RTD in the cultural sector through international activities with complementary clusters and dissemination activities.
Project Results:
The work within the SmartCulture project has been organised according to a common Work Plan and structured in three stages including a total of eight work packages.
STAGE 1 – ANALYSIS AND MAPPING OF TECHNOLOGIES & INNOVATION IN DIGITAL CULTURAL HERITAGE
WORK PACKAGE 2 - Analysis and Integration – RDTI directory and SWOT analysis
Objectives
Based on a Societal, Economic and Political (SEP) approach, the 8 partner regions performed a mapping exercises of all relevant R&D and innovation activities in the field of SmartCulture in order to identify the key actors and the financial tools enabling and facilitating the introduction and implementation of SmartCulture. A regional and common SWOT analysis enabled to compare and analyse the situation across the participating regions, defining general conclusions and recommendations on complementarities, synergies and potential for future cooperation.
Significant results:
Regional inventory and analysis
First of all, a common methodology for the analysis of SmartCulture in regional clusters (Deliverable 2.1) was set up. Secondly, each partner region presented its regional context (dimension of the territory, demography, etc) and inventoried public and private key actors (political, research, educational, economic, cultural), regional policies & initiatives as well as success stories and good practice models in the Digital Cultural Heritage field (Deliverable 2.2).
The SmartCulture Consortium completed the inventory by a set of monitoring tools to evaluate and analyse the local environment of each SmartCulture region: 332 online questionnaires have been completed, 43 focus groups with 215 participants and 104 in depth interviews with 110 participants have been realized. In total, 657 European stakeholders from varied backgrounds - public authorities, business, academia and cultural organisations - have been involved in the survey.
SmartCulture as a strategic driver for the RoK and good practice models
Based on the collected data, a SWOT analysis (Deliverable 2.3) has been performed to provide a background and an overview of the commonalities and differencies among partner regions with respect to the Digital Cultural Heritage. In such a way, the participating regions gained insight into the strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the respective regions. This was essential to assess both success chances and possible contribution to the local and European economy.
Tools created:
Directory of RDT offer and demand
The 8 SmartCulture partner regions have designed a common platform untiltled “the Directory of RDT offer and demand ” (Deliverable 2.4) which inventories organisations, stakeholders, competences and needs, as well as existing and future projects in the public and private RDT in the scope of the SmartCulture project. Each partner has been responsible to maintain the data of its region and opened it to a wider network by inviting key stakeholders to share their data. At the end of the project, 94 organisations, 83 projects and 103 partners have been identified and inventoried. The Directory of RDT offer and demand is an ongoing valuable tool to foster transnational cross-sectorial collaboration by promoting regional competences and projects.
STAGE 2 – STRATEGIC RESEARCH AGENDA, JOINT ACTION PLAN AND BUSINESS PLAN
WORK PACKAGE 3 - Strategic Interdisciplinary Research Agendas (SIRA)
Objectives
After defining the methodology for the regional research agendas (Deliverable 3.1) the SmartCulture Consortium elaborated a regional Research Agenda (Deliverable 3.2) in each partner region on the basis of the SWOT analysis and the RTD offer and demand. Additional interviews with the regional research stakeholders were conducted; the goal was to identify specific cluster policies and regional partnership dynamics in terms of interaction, cooperation schemes and successfully implemented models for encouraging and further developing the technology transfer among research centres and the private sector (especially SMEs). Complementarities between the regions have been outlined in the Strategic Interdisciplinary Research Agenda (Deliverable 3.3) as well as the research opportunities, networking, synergies and transnational cooperation in the Digital Cultural Heritage field.
Significant results:
Regional Research Agenda
Each regional cluster has defined and implemented regional Research Agendas to reflect the regional core competencies and shortcomings as regards its capacity to produce, transfer and use knowledge for innovative cultural heritage technology solutions and their deployment. These agendas created a basis for understanding and planning the regional capabilities for promoting economic development and competitiveness through enhanced research activities. The sectors concerned are related to platforms for digital access to cultural resources, technologies for creating personalized and engaging digital cultural experiences, new cultural media, etc ... The 8 regional Research Agendas have been elaborated through desk research, interviews and meetings with local stakeholders and aggregated the following 4 outcomes:
▪ Disparities exist in the research infrastructures and competencies, in the current research lines and new products, as well as in the type of sources and amount of funding available for research in the Digital Cultural Heritage sector. Regions and regional clusters such as Nord-Pas de Calais (France), Brainport (Eindhoven, Netherlands), or Madrid (Spain), have strong research and technological infrastructure and have made significant progress in utilizing ICT in cultural heritage. On the other hand, regions such as Siena (Italy), with rich cultural heritage and significant traditions in the preservation, socialization and creative use of this heritage, encounter problems with the administrative organization and funding of cutting-edge research.
▪ Policies and Smart Specialization strategies: only a few of the regions have in place long-term strategic policies, aligned with the relevant EU documents, that identify CCIs and the ICT as main drivers for innovation and economic growth. For example, only some of the regions have included the CCIs as a core economic sector for investment and targeted development in their regional Smart Specialization Strategies. Respectively, the lack of long-term vision about the CCIs and the future of Digital Cultural Heritage significantly impedes the progress in the research and application of technology in support of innovations for interactive and open access to cultural heritage in the partner countries.
▪ Needs: Cultural heritage Institutions and museums are primarily receivers and users of new technologies and research results, rather than producers. Cultural heritage institutions in the partner regions do apply, to varying degrees, digital media to present their collections, such as online presentations, apps, multimedia displays, QR codes, audio tours based on infra-red, game engines, etc. Across regions, it is also clear that museums and Cultural Heritage institutions would benefit from specialised technical training, financial resources, and better mechanisms for networking and cooperation with key ICT and CCI actors in their region (e.g. private-public partnerships, dedicated funds, EU programs). Partners also emphasize the need for interdisciplinary research and closer cooperation between the ICT and research in the humanities and social sciences, which can inform innovative solutions for the further reflection and socialization of cultural heritage.
▪ Technologies: As concerns current research lines in Digital Cultural Heritage, most of the regions are actively experimenting (notwithstanding the differentiation in pace and resources available to do this) with mobile apps, with augmented reality and sensor-technology, 3D modelling, open data, semantic web, designing virtual visits to museums and collections. In terms of future trends and forward-looking scenarios, the following highlight the regions’ R&D efforts in a mid- and long-term perspective: further research and integration in practice of artificial intelligence projects, Human-robot collaboration, data mining, gestures and emotions combined interaction, mixed display system (the screen resolution will adapt itself considering the visitor’s position), voice and eye control, digital system minimization, etc.
SmartCulture Research Agenda
The aim of the SmartCulture Research Agenda was to produce detailed and interdisciplinary knowledge of various types of processes and experiences, integrating complementarities between the regions, collaborative projects to support exchanges. It drew a range of initiatives that push the development of both access and experiences to Digital Cultural Heritage (DCH) through collaboration between research, culture, and SMEs within digital media.
Based on the data provided by the 8 regional Research Agendas, the SmartCulture Research Agenda identified collaborative initiatives that can develop productive integrations of complementarities between the regions around three thematic research priorities:
• New heritages, new knowledge and new questions - This priority is based on the recognition that the advent of new technologies, changing demographics are not only affecting the ways in which cultural heritage material is collected, stored, presented, but also what cultural heritage is and how it should be interpreted. This research priority aims at formulating new research questions and/or methodologies in relation to various types of changes.
• Cultural research and innovation - This priority grows out of the institutional gaps identified within many of the Regional Research Agendas. What is identified is, broadly speaking, a gap between research on culture, which is (or has been) largely focused on preservation, and the entrepreneurial and innovation sector, which is largely based on visions of change and transformation. A collaborative venue for discussing more central questions with regard to culture, heritage and change will produce productive re-interpretations.
• The relevance and meaning of cultural heritage to contemporary audiences - The priority is linked to the argument that the development of sustainable models developed for access and usage of cultural heritage should be based on a more thorough understanding of what cultural heritage experiences actually mean for the end users. The expansion of users of cultural heritage is therefore largely dependent on more empirical research about the meaning and relevance of cultural heritage to contemporary users.
By monitoring each partner ecosystem in terms of research topics, technology forecast, relations between institutions or future scenarios, the SmartCulture Research Agenda underlined several challenges that shall be overcome for the further development of the Digital Cultural Heritage sector, such as the following:
• Disciplinary insularity;
• Lack of recognition of interdisciplinary and cross-sectorial research;
• Discursive barriers (e.g. between different types of institutions);
• Too much administration in terms of applying for and running research programmes;
• Processes of digitalisation of cultural heritage materials;
• Divergent timeframes within the different institutional settings;
• Available resources in relevant SMEs;
• Unstable and underdeveloped markets;
• Lack of regional political and commercial emphasis;
• Lack of specific funding possibilities.
The descriptions and evaluations of the projects and their contexts within each region formed the backdrop of the formulation of a range of specific recommendations to, respectively, policy makers, future research and to the Strategic Research Agenda. A central theme across the regions is the call for a more elaborate integration across national states/regions in terms of policies, funding schemes and selected technology applications. The aim of these recommendations is to encourage a range of commonly focused initiatives that cut across disciplinary and institutional boundaries. The major themes of the recommendations are the following:
• Cross-disciplinary, cross-sectional and cross-national infrastructures (labs, centres, projects, networks etc.);
• Coordinated policies/strategies on cultural heritage research;
• Common and open platforms for access to and experiences of cultural heritage;
• Funding opportunities tailored to digital cultural heritage projects;
• The use of European Capitals of Culture (or other cultural events) as levers in the development of Digital Cultural Heritage.
WORK PACKAGE 4 - Definition of a Joint Action Plan (JAP) and Business Plan
Objectives
Based on the previous studies, a Joint Action Plan (JAP, Deliverable 4.1) has been defined to describe the SmartCulture strategy to drive and boost regional (and European) economic development and efficiency through research, technological development, networking, synergies, recommendations for the regional research agendas, improved transnational cooperation and full exploitation of the SWOT analysis results in the field of a wide access to Culture.
A Business Plan (BP, Deliverable 4.2) including a financial guide completed this strategy by showing the different available alternatives to fund the foreseen activities and measures by taking into account existing calls at regional, national and European levels. Finally, strategic guidelines (Plan for the International and mentoring activities – Deliverable 4.3) have been drawn for accompying activities at international level such as collaboration with other cluster platforms, mentoring and exchange activities or worldwide initiatives and programmes.
Significant results
Joint Action Plan
The 8 SmartCulture regions showed evidence of different speeds in the economic and political development of the Digital Cultural Heritage field, although generally in all of them this sector is still not positioned where its whole potential could be unleashed, as engines of economic and social growth that some reports from the European Commission have been pointing out since 2010 .
However, even if the partners presented significant disparities, this diagnosis revealed many strategic similarities that will reach the project objectives. Thanks to the regional expertises, the guidelines for a common strategy in the field of Digital Cultural Heritage had been drawn and had designed a set of 9 transnational actions which could inspires not only the regions that are part of the project, but any region of Europe.
1 – INNOVATION AND NEW BUSINESS MODELS
This activity concerns the innovation in the development of new products, services and processes; in the identification of new models and avenues for collaboration in research and development projects; and in any transforming measure which allows better support for businesses and entrepreneurship in the Digital Cultural Heritage sector.
2 – KNOWLEDGE AND TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER
This activity operates at two levels. On one hand, it encourages the rational use and sharing of knowledge and technology as regards the research and the development of Digital Cultural Heritage projects (quadruple helix, public/private). On the other hand, thanks to the creation of a Digital Cultural Heritage network of experts, it supports the mentoring of less developed regions in the field.
3 – STRATEGIES AND PUBLIC POLICIES
This activity aims to encourage the design of strategies and public policies which support the Digital Cultural Heritage field within local, regional, national and European strategic agendas, as a key element in the driving force of the economy. Indeed, the SmartCulture objectives cannot be fulfilled without the involvement and the support of the policy makers. Therefore, a number of actions could expand or strengthen their policies and acknowledge their relevance as a key element in the promotion of the regional, national and European economy.
4 – TRAINING AND IMPROVEMENT OF SPECIFIC PROFILES IN THE DIGITAL CULTURAL HERITAGE FIELD
This activity promotes the development of training programs adapted to the new needs of the Digital Cultural Heritage sector. It also supports knowledge and technologies transfer and promotes regional, European and international alliances for training professionals. It emphasizes mentoring activities and increases the mobility of the stakeholders (researchers, students, professionals) between countries, companies and business-institutions, with the main objective of achieving a better balance of training in the current competitive business landscape.
5 – FINANCIAL CAPACITY AND NEW FUNDING MODELS
This activity supports the access to public / private funds, the development of new funding models and underlines a cost-reduction strategy, following the European economical situation.
6 – MORE CULTURE FOR MORE PEOPLE
This activity values the rich European cultural heritage, through the enhancement of its assets, making it accessible to citizens through technology available at all times.
7 – SMARTCULTURE BRAND
Many regions underlined the need to promote a “SmartCulture brand” to enhance their visibility on a European scale and to raise aweress of the international experts.
8- INTERNATIONALIZATION
Directly linked to the previous activity, the regions stressed the importance of the internationalization, in terms of awareness raising, knowledge transfer and economic development.
9- CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS OR VACANT BUILDINGS AS TESTLABS / SHOWROOMS / DIGITAL ART CENTRES
This action concerns the transformation of Cultural institutions, patrimony or vacant buildings into SmartCulture testlabs and showrooms. Digital Cultural Heritage would be used as a tool for social cohesion, mobility, land-use planning and sustainable development.
Business Plan
The SmartCulture Business Plan completes the Joint Action Plan by defining the responsibilities, priorities, budget lines and a schedule for the proposed actions, on the basis of existing calls at regional, national and European level which are detailed in a financial guide.
All the SmartCulture regions have underlined the importance of improving the access to public and private funding in the field of Digital Cultural Heritage. To improve this essential aspect, it is vital that the public administration becomes aware of the importance of this sector as driver of economic and social growth, and that the loan market and other forms of private financing gain confidence in the sector and refine their perception of the risk. Similarly, encouraging investment in the Digital Cultural Heritage sector will be helped by other factors such as the cross collaboration between varied organisations. In this Business Plan, a special attention has also been given to regional, national and international R&D funding programs, which represent great opportunities to the field and could be facilitated by the SmartCulture Interdisciplinary Research Agenda.
Clusters and similar associations are a catalyst for processes and networking among market players. They are a good foothold to carry out initiatives that require coordination and dialogue between entities of different sizes and profiles, notably regarding the quadruple-helix model (Business, Public Bodies, Academia & Cultural organisations).
However, some of the foreseen activities and measures require a high level of funding, when infrastructures, training or promotion are needed. This has compelled us to point out the risks and propose reasonable alternatives to ensure the achievement of the objectives. In some regions such as Eindhoven, West Midlands and Midtjylland, financial capacity is stronger, and in such cases the search for improvements focuses on private funding.
With regards to the time horizon, the SmartCulture Business Plan projects a balanced distribution of short, medium and long-term activities. Therefore, in the global map of action implementation, there should be no problem in creating an evenly distributed work load for the next 5 years and to ensure the sustainability of the activities. The underlying objective is to lay a firm foundation to ensure the strengthening of the Digital Cultural Heritage in the long run.
Finally, the successful implementation of this Business Plan will ultimately depend on the level of commitment of the stakeholders who have the capacity to cause a structural change in the Digital Cultural Heritage at regional and European levels.
Plan for the International and mentoring activities
At the early stages of the SmartCulture Project, the plan for the international and mentoring activities was designated to enhance the comparative advantages of the local economy and to stimulate creativity and enterprise. The consortium structure was considered to have a high potential to create strong mutual learning effects and to provide mentoring to less-developed regions (intra- and inter-cluster mentoring). Indeed, the SmartCulture consortium represents a mix of well to less developed regions, which face different challenges due to their different economic development. It has been built around the expert knowledge of the leading innovative and mature research-driven clusters that will transfer technical and organisational knowledge through mentoring to other participating clusters. Therefore, it is a perfect opportunity to exchange experience and engage in peer review and mentoring activities.
In addition to the mentoring activities which take place within the SmartCulture consortium in the 8 regions, partners underlined the increasing need for internationalization and specific training dedicated to the professionals in the field of Digital Cultural Heritage, as it can be considered at many levels as being the new driver for a smart, sustainable and inclusive development. In this context, international mentoring and exchange activities with other regions and countries seem to be critical components of the development of the next generation of highly qualified profesionnals.
Therefore, the Plan for the International and mentoring activities presents:
• the needs of the Consortium in terms of mentoring activities and how the less-developed research profile could benefit from highly developed ones through mutual mentoring (Innovation, Training, European Capitals of Culture candidacies...);
• examples of existing mentoring activities in the field of Digital Cultural Heritage (dissemination, training, research, services to business, awards and contests...);
• a list of mentoring activities that could be implemented with identified clusters (services to SMEs, events and marketplace, collaborative projects, common platform, Open data...);
• a plan for the integration of SmartCulture with worldwide initiatives such as UNESCO;
• strategic guidelines of the Plan for international and mentoring activities.
STAGE 3 – IMPLEMENTATION AND ACCOMPANYING MEASURES
WORK PACKAGE 5 - Capacity building and cluster area activation
Objectives
The SmartCulture Consortium followed up on the impact analysis of cultural innovation on the development, the accumulation and the expansion of human potential. Current state of play and future requirements with regard to human resources (qualification, skills...) development perspectives, strategic goals and action lines to be pursued in the future have been described. The partner regions then translated capacity building processes in the context of SmartCulture, on regional operational levels, with the help of Joint Activation of Regional Cluster Areas activities and Best Practice Study Tours. In order to support the creation of cluster-based communities of practice and promote the Joint Action Plan, the Consortium provided models – taking the form of pilot-actions – that can be flexibly reproduced and adjusted in other specific local contexts.
Significant results
State of the art of capacity building practices (Deliverable 5.1)
A human potential analysis has been run in the 8 SmartCulture regions and underlines that over the past five years Cultural and Creative Industries and Information and Communication Technology have become an important factor of growth for the SmartCulture regions.
Consequently, the employment patterns and growth in the sector has been driven by the expansion of entrepreneurship and innovation. New job profiles have emerged and the Digital Cultural Heritage professionals have become multi-skilled, integrating different forms of artistic/creative/technological competences, as well as tranversal skills like autonomy, project management or sales to support the transdisciplinarity of the sector.
Digital Cultural Heritage demonstrates strong employment dynamics, particularly in the areas of multimedia and software. These two sub-sectors are those with the greatest demand for content and creativity and therefore represent the best employment opportunities for entrepreneurs in the creative industries. However, the field has been challenged by the economic crisis which increased significantly the number of small and micro businesses, as well as self-employed/freelancers. The uncertainty of the market and the employment instability make them at the same time: vulnerable to external changes and political decisions; and more reactive/adaptable to the market thanks to the profile of the professionals (young, mobile, and community driven ...).
In order to address these challenges, the sector responded by investing in R&D, by increasing the collaboration between public-private actors, by building triple helix ecosystems (centres, labs, incubation networks...) by designing new business opportunities beyond Europe. The SmartCulture regions have observed the growing need for entrepreneurship (business models, ability to search for private funding, to access the international market...) and languages skills.
The development and enactment of specific policies and funding opportunities have in some regions trailed behind, following upon the trend, instead of creating a favourable environment for the sector [in the case of Bulgaria, a national strategy for the development of the Creative and Cultural Industries is still pending]. In addition, the unprecedented “boom” of the area provoked a skill-gap between the graduate pool and the professionals needed. The regions are threatened of a deficit of skilled workers which could jeopardize their growth.
The SmartCulture consortium has identified several innovative training programs aiming at reducing the disparities and at completing the education currently provided by universities and schools: business training and workshops for professionals, fablabs for peer mentoring, lifelong learning, e-learning platforms, exchange of workshop and knowledge, specialised Digital Cultural Heritage training... The examples of practices provided by the 8 regions are a good indicator of the collaborative efforts between traditional cultural heritage institutions such as museums and libraries, with software development companies, media, digital apps, etc. In terms of developing human potential, such initiatives have led to improve the technical skills, knowledge, and experiences of cultural heritage in the relevant audiences.
Across the territories, it can be observed a growing use of digital technology products for learning (for example in the regions of Siena, Sofia, and Nord-Pas de Calais) and closer cooperation between publicly funded research institutions and business actors (e.g. Muzeiko in the region of Sofia). These practices confirm the trends expressed in the previous SmartCulture reports and already usher innovative workspaces, events, training and experiences. However, lacks remain especially regarding business services, policies/strategies or funding opportunities. Further actions are needed to create a fruitful ecosystem for innovative training activities and cross-sectoral education initiatives to secure a pipeline of young skilled professionals.
Based on the data provided, it can be expected that in the next 5-10 years the Digital Cultural Heritage sector will generate significant number of jobs in the regions, with a positive influence on the education and employment systems. However, the current economic environment increases the disparities between the well-developed clusters (e.g. France, Spain, UK) and catch-up regions (e.g. Bulgaria) which will prevent the Digital Cultural Heritage sector to become a large scale employer in the countries concerned.
Communities of practice
Based on the previous study, the SmartCulture Consortium translated on an operational level capacity building processes in the context of the SmartCulture framework through Joint Activation of Regional Cluster Areas (JARCA – Deliverable 5.2) workshops, as well as mentoring activities through Best Practice Study Tours for Competence Building and networking. Each SmartCulture region organised one or several JARCA workshops to “activate” its regional Quadruple Helix ecosystem.
In total, 12 JARCA activities from various kinds (PTS Committee, Business Meetups, Conferences) have been organised in the 8 SmartCulture regions, gathering 85 renowned speakers and 481 participants from 191 organisations.
As a second step and based on targeted interviews to key players, the SmartCulture Consortium has designed the SmartCulture Social Learning Base which could help Digital Cultural Heritage stakeholders to seek help from experts, to be tutored by peers, to market watch and seize the new business opportunities, to share knowledge and skills.
The Physical and Virtual labs implemented through the Best Practice Study Tours for Competence Building (Deliverable 5.3) have been organized at regional level within the regional clusters and involved the regional key players, but also at European level through workshops and experience exchange events put in place in the framework of the WP6 “Benchmarking and Mutual Mentoring”.
Implementation of pilot forms of cluster-based communities of practice (Deliverable 5.4)
The preliminary work has enabled the Consortium to gather enough expertise to highlight eight pilot actions currently implemented in each SmartCulture region with the help of a promotional brochure, which could efficiently promote the SmartCulture Joint Action Plan towards specific target groups and especially Public Authorities, and provide models that can be flexibly reproduced and adjusted in other specific local contexts.
Tools created
Virtual Best Practice Study Tours
In complement to the Physical Best Practice Study Tours, the need for a virtual platform to showcase SmartCulture best practices and reach a wider audience has been underlined. Typically a study tour is a physical visit to a specific location. However, organizing actual study tours to visit many different locations is an extremely time consuming and expensive effort.
To cope with this challenge, the Consortium has found a way for each region to present any number of Best Practices without the necessity for all the other partners to pay actual visits to the region. Therefore, the creation of a Virtual Study Tours (VST) provides a new way of discussing the concept of study tours and has led to the development of a dynamic platform that can evolve over time.
This platform was integrated into the SmartCulture website and can be accessed here: http://www.smartculture.eu/content/virtual-tours
Brochure “New Technologies and Digital Growth in Cultural and Creative Industries: 8 case studies”
As a strategy to achieve maximum impact of the selected pilot actions to the SmartCulture targeted audiences (ICT and CCI businesses, research stakeholders, policy makers, academia, cultural institutions and general public), the Consortium decided to design a classic promotional and communication element . 1.000 paper copies of this brochure were distributed across Europe.
WORK PACKAGE 6 - Benchmarking and Mutual Mentoring
Objectives
SmartCulture partners identified cases of good practice across clusters to enhance the competitiveness of the European Digital Cultural Heritage sectors vis-à-vis global competitors through a benchmarking of research-driven Digital Cultural Heritage clusters; and developed a mutual mentoring process, international cluster activities and meta-cluster structures.
Significant results
Benchmarking and Self Assessment (Deliverable 6.2)
The SmartCulture Consortium intended to frame effective interactive processes so that people - whether they are technicians, political, scientific or cultural actors - can valorise and share their practices and skills through participation in the exchanges and experiences events organised by the SmartCulture project.
As a first step, each SmartCulture region proceeded to a self-assessment and benchmarked who were the trainers and the trainees within the consortium, in order to build a serie of physical interactions at workshops, presentations, discussion sessions and visits to develop new levels of complexity with regards to collaborative work and interactions between SmartCulture partners themselves and their network of stakeholders.
On the basis of these results, three main subjects and the subsequent three workshops were designed. These joint trainings took place in the framework of (at least) 3-day physical meetings which included different activities such as best practice study tours and mutual mentoring in three of the partners’ locations:
• Collaboration workshop, held in Birmingham (West Midlands, UK) from the 20th to the 22ndst of May 2015
• Policy workshop, held in Aarhus (Midtjylland, Denmark) from the 24th to the 26th of June 2015
• Ecosystems workshop, held in Nord-Pas de Calais region from the 26th of September to the 02nd of October 2015
Staff exchanges, Joint Trainings & Mutual Mentoring for the implementation of Meta-Cluster structures (Deliverable 6.1 and 6.3)
As stated above, the 8 SmartCulture regions engaged in staff exchanges on the basis of a beneficial exchange of experience between good practice regions and learning regions. Good practices were used for regions advancements and specific training needs necessary to catch up with global standards. The use of case studies and concrete, tangible examples has proven to be an excellent way to convey best practices from one region to another. The examples identified by the trainers helped the trainees understand activities, processes and policies, easy to compare and transpose to their local contexts.
The three Experience Exchange Events – Collaboration, Policy and Ecosystems – included demonstrations sessions, focus groups with local stakeholders, company visits and university visits, with a view of showing:
• the business community and the state of the technology used;
• the institutional and policy infrastructure;
• the quality of the research and innovation capacity.
By fostering European collaboration between the 8 SmartCulture regions, the Consortium has defined and implemented a European Meta-Cluster platform for digital cultural clusters (Deliverable 6.4). In other words, the Consortium shaped a quadruple helix model Meta-Cluster – based on the 8 regional Meta-Clusters - that responds to the interests and needs of all active stakeholders in Digital Cultural Heritage field in order to gain excellence in knowledge transfer, networking and competitiveness.
The International SmartCulture Week and Final Conference
From September 26th to October 2nd 2015, EuraTechnologies located in Lille (France), organised a one week workshop aiming to present a review of the project and to address the next challenges of the Digital Cultural Heritage market.
At this occasion, 450 participants from 10 countries attended the 14 workshops&conferences in 5 different locations (Lille Metropole, Valenciennes, Lens, Calais, Mons). The event questioned the chances and challenges of new technologies (Data, Digital Trust, Holography, Fingerprinting...) to unlock the treasures of our cultural heritage for a wide audience, in the presence of representatives from the European Commission, and renown speakers from Europeana, Living Labs Germany, Irights, ADAGP.
The International SmartCulture Week has stimulated the collaborationbetween ICT enterprises, creative and cultural organizations and research institutes from Europe and beyond, building a new network of organizations, specialised in the application of digital media to cultural heritage. The goal was also for the 7 other SmartCulture regions to learn from the Ecosystem build in the Region Nord - Pas de Calais and to discover former and actual European Capitals of Culture, lille3000 and Mons2015 (Belgium).
Tools created
Meta-Cluster Google Map
After identifying and inventorying regional Meta-Clusters with the help of the previous SmartCulture studies (SWOT, JAP, Inventory ...) SmartCulture partners mapped the mix component such as infrastructure and existing projects on an open and free tool - Google map - in order to get a global overview of each SmartCulture Meta-Cluster based on the Quadruple Helix Ecosystem model: Academic/Scientific, Political, Business and the fourth helix: Societal Participation. Then, the 8 Google maps merged into one to engage further clusters – unifying them across Europe as a European SmartCulture Meta-Cluster.
The task demonstrated the need for a resource that could unify, promote and engage further with the consortium (Inward) and further activity internationally (Outward).
WORK PACKAGE 7 - Communication and Dissemination
Objectives
The focus of the WP7 has been the dissemination and transfer of knowledge to the regional and national stakeholders involved in the project and to the overall target group of the project results, cluster managers, business associations, research centres and policymakers at local, regional, national and European level.
Significant results
Dissemination Plan (Deliverable 7.1)
A Dissemination Plan has been designed to promote the project outcomes and to stimulate linkages and cooperation among regions and sectors, creating a SmartCulture European platform that fostered creativity, social impact, and economic growth with the help of specific tools such as a website, a blog, promotional videos, social media platforms, brochures, newsletters or presentations.
Communication tools created (Deliverable 7.2)
SmartCulture website
The project website attracted 18.318 visits and recorded 3927 downloads. It has acted as a powerful promotional tool for boosting the information flow. It was created at the beginning of the project and animated by each partner region, accessible under the following link www.smartculture.eu . The website provides access to news, project updates, blogs, project results, best practices, virtual study tours and current events related to the development of the SmartCulture project.
Social Media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn
The SmartCulture Consortium has built virtual communities on social Media platforms to achieve greater dissemination to a variety of target groups through LinkedIn , Facebook and Twitter platforms. Moreover, partners used their own channels to promote SmartCulture findings, events and news. Accumulated number of people reached by the project and the partners via social media channels is: 74 903 people.
Contact database
During the last 3 years, SmartCulture enhanced a network of 2525 professionals in the Digital Cultural Heritage field, mostly from the 8 partner regions but also from Germany, Belgium, USA, Brazil, South Africa, India or Australia. The SmartCulture partners involved their regional stakeholders and international partners in different phases of the project, from analysis and studies to action and practice.
Newsletters
Six newsletters have been produced and distributed during the lifetime of the project. Containing more information than the project brochures, short electronic newsletters were created to inform and stimulate key stakeholders. Their objectives were not only to inform readers about the project itself, but also to be a relay of the website. Newsletter sections included:
• editorial, focus on (interview of a special guest/expert),
• news across Europe, what’s going on (in SmartCulture partner regions),
• upcoming events (inside and outside the consortium),
• latest results (information about other complementing projects),
• case study sheets,
• presentation of consortium members and contacts.
Interested parties could subscribe to the newsletter on the project’s website. In total the newsletter holds 195 subscribers. The newsletters were issued on a six-month basis. In addition to the subscribers, the newsletters have been sent to the regional stakeholders from the SmartCulture regions, reaching out 4867 experts across Europe.
Videos
Three videos have been produced to promote and disseminate the outcomes of the SmartCulture project:
- Movie #1: produced at the start of the project, set out the aims and objectives of SmartCulture;
- Movie #2: gave a mid-term overview of what the project had achieved so far and focussed on sharing good practices from the eight regions;
- Movie #3: presented the outcomes, facts and figures of the SmartCulture project.
The promotional videos were presented during events, such as the SmartCulture Mid-term Conference (Brussels, June 2014) and the International SmartCulture Week (Lille, September 2015) and local events such as the PTS Committees. The movies are available online, on the SmartCulture website: www.smartculture.eu and on vimeo (https://vimeo.com/127143558 https://vimeo.com/79302497/ and https://vimeo.com/147300826).
Brochures
6 370 copies of 4 SmartCulture brochures have been produced and distributed within the SmartCulture project :
- A general project brochure: to introduce the project to stakeholders during events and meetings. This brochure was designed in a PDF format, in order for each partner to print as many brochures as needed, but also to distribute digitally. The brochure reflected the existence and the purpose of the project. The goal was to make stakeholders aware of the project, of the website and of the procedures on how to contact the SmartCulture consortium. It was handed to all project partners in order to ensure a widespread dissemination. Throughout the project over 5.000 general project brochures have been distributed.
- A Mid-term conference brochure: distributed to the conference participants, dedicated for dissemination before and during the conference. Next to the conference’s programme, explanatory texts on the project were showcased.
- New Technologies and Digital Growth in Cultural and Creative Industries - 8 Case Studies: produced in the framework of the work package 5 for the promotion of the Joint Action Plan to showcase 8 SmartCulture case studies in each partner region. 1000 copies were printed and distributed amongst the partners for dissemination.
- The International SmartCulture Week programme: the final SmartCulture event programme has been distributed to the event participants. 300 copies were printed.
Fairs, exhibitions, Conferences
In order to communicate and disseminate the SmartCulture project results, the SmartCulture partners organised 69 events gathering 1789 participants (3 Workshop Events, 44 Political Technical Scientic Committes, 12 Joint Activation of Regional Cluster Areas activities, 3 experience exchange events, 10 internal periodic meetings) and participated to 94 events in 20 different countries across the world. These events – lectures, meetings, discussions, networking, trade missions or conferences - enabled all partners to disseminate on a wider-scale the promotional materials created for the project and consequently, to further involve local stakeholders and organisations in the SmartCulture framework. It also fostered connections with other Digital Cultural Heritage networks such as Europeana Foundation or ENCATC, as well as other European projects such as ECULT or MESCH.
Dissemination to selected target groups & Foreground activities (Deliverable 7.3)
Target groups have been selected in each region to reach a maximum impact and efficiency in the short and mid-term within the key audiences of the SmartCulture project including public authorities, industries and businesses, users, clusters and networks, researchers and universities, private financing, policy makers. These stakeholders have been divided in four main groups to optimize dissemination according to each group peculiarities, needs and communication codes:
Supported by a contact database gathering 2525 professionals from the Digital Cultural Heritage sector across the SmartCulture regions and beyond, the Consortium developed an action plan for communication and dissemination of results, including the following means for each group:
With the help of key performance indicators, partners tracked the evolution and results of these activities which clearly went beyond expectations. In total, the Consortium has inventoried at the end of the project 18 318 visitors for the website, 74 903 followers/likes/posts on the social medias, 997 viewers for the promotional videos, 6370 recipients for the 4 project brochures, 4867 for the 6 newsletters and 1789 participants over the 69 SmartCulture events.
However, the 8 partner regions and the 13 Consortium members wish to pursue this new dynamic and to capitalise on the work done by continuing the results’ dissemination, especially towards public authorities for the design of specific policies in favor of the Digital Cultural Heritage Sector, and academia for the design of new research projects and training programmes which could create a fruitful network for the next generation of professionals. A common publication about the concept of SmartCulture Economy is currently designed by the University of Birmingham (UK) and the Università di comunicazione e lingue (Italy) and will be published in August 2016.
Press releases, articles and publications
The project issued 4 press releases to disseminate the outcomes of the SmartCulture project:
- SmartCulture Kick-off: the first press release was produced in January 2013, announcing the project’s kick-off. The document expressed the aims and objectives of the project and introduced the partners of the Consortium.
- Mid-Term Conference: released in June 2014 at the occasion of the Mid-term conference.
- International SmartCulture Week 2015: issued in October 2015 to disseminate the facts and figures of the last SmartCulture event.
- SmartCulture achievements: facts and figures of the 3-year project.
The press releases were published on the SmartCulture website and were sent to 2976 press contacts across Europe. Besides over 16 press articles and 5 press videos were published in European media and one interview was broadcasted by the Bulgarian National Radio on 13th of August 2013.
In addition to the common press releases and to the press articles, the Consortium members also published regularly blogs and posts on the website and social media of their own organisations (over 250 articles as reflected by the KPIs – Deliverable 7.3).
Free accessible channels were also used, such as the open access tools provided by the EC: CORDIS, Academia.eu and Openaire in order to disseminate the project’s results.
WORK PACKAGE 8 - Internationalisation activities and strategies with third countries
Objectives
After activating regional and European Digital Cultural Heritage ecosystems, the SmartCulture Consortium elaborated internationalisation strategies aiming at exchanging experiences and skills with interesting partners from Third Countries and notably regions such as the Minas Gerais (Brazil), Tokyo and Kyoto (Japan), Boston and Silicon Valley (USA), Delhi and Bombay (India).
Significant results
Cooperation models and maps beyond Europe (Deliverable 8.1)
As part of the first phase of the SmartCulture internationalisation activities and strategies with third countries, all partners had to identify and inventory its cooperation models with European and third countries. The goal was to identify converging areas and to capitalise on existing models to widen the SmartCulture scope and End-User Advisory board. The cooperation models analysed were deliberately varied (trade, culture, development, tourism, education) in order to allow the SmartCulture Consortium to define a transversal international strategy and to evaluate its added-value for the Digital Cultural Heritage.
The analysis has underlined the growing importance of Digital Cultural Heritage on the global framework. Projects and varied research perspectives are blossoming all around the world; and many countries like Brazil, China, South Korea, Israel, or South Africa are now developing leading-edge knowledge and competences in the field, competing with the world’s leaders: Japan, India or the USA. Consequently, international relations are evolving and becoming more complex and sophisticated, which usher the market and policies to evolve to keep up.
The majority of existing cooperation models is merely based on bilateral cooperation, for its simplicity and its ability to easily adapt the terms of the agreement. However, for the past 5 years, the will of the European commission to build stronger relationships with Third countries has led the member states to foster multilateral models, with the help of EU funded projects, networks, international events or cross sectorial research communities.
Multilateralism is without doubt an added value for the Digital Cultural Heritage sector. The SmartCulture project is a perfect example of the importance of multicentric studies led by various stakeholders, as the field necessitates at the same time transversality and transdisciplinarity.
Internationalisation strategies of SmartCulture (Deliverable 8.2)
By applying the international strategy mapping and structuring the international network, the SmartCulture Consortium has initiated connections with 48 countries all around the world through 19 workshops and expertise meetings, the creation of a virtual platform for networking and knowledge exchange, as well as technical and political recommendation for the digital European agenda.
New areas – for example Africa or Australia - have been stimulated and demonstrate a huge potential for further cooperation in the Digital Cultural Heritage field. A new community of experts with varied competences and backgrounds (Cultural institutions, Researchers, Academies, Businesses, Public Authorities) started to exchange information, staff and experiences and have shown a strong will to collaborate to overcome local or global challenges.
The performed activities also underlined the importance of a bottom up approach to define new methods and strategies towards the Digital Cultural Heritage sector, which could support European growth and competitiveness. However, as seen in the 5 Political and Technical Recommendations provided to the Consortium, a solid base of common methods, rules and regulations remains necessary from the European Union to go from quadruple to multiple helix cooperation models and help European citizens to liberate their innovation potentials.
The European Union’s strategy, and more specifically its Horizon2020 and Creative Europe programmes, demonstrates rich opportunities to experiment new practices, which could ensure the sustainability of the Digital Cultural Heritage sector and pursue the promotion of the European expertise on the global market.
Tools created
Virtual platform for exchanging experiences and information
SmartCulture addresses a relatively new area of expertise, a niche market where digital meets culture and where professionals with varied competences are working together. To stimulate the networking and cross-fertilization between these sectors, the SmartCulture Consortium set up a virtual platform for exchanging experiences, knowledge and contacts. The objective was to create a sustainable cross-sectoral network of international stakeholders.
After listing and evaluating the SmartCulture tools already designed and activated, the SmartCulture LinkedIn network platform has been selected to become the WP8 virtual platform. This decision was made considering the conditions (need for sustainability, lack of budget to create or maintain an additional platform) and the fact that LinkedIn already offers excellent network opportunities, being the professional social media channel actually used by many of our stakeholders - Cultural organizations, businesses (ICT, CCI), academies and research centers, public authorities and user communities worldwide.
The SmartCulture LinkedIn platform gathers 130 members from 14 countries in Europe and beyond - such as Argentina, US, Canada and Israel – which are potentially connected to more than 45 000 professionals worldwide.
Technical and political recommendation as regards an international strategy for the digital European agenda
In order to facilitate the design of an international strategy for the European Digital Agenda, the SmartCulture consortium gathered Political and Technical recommendations from the partner regions as regards the Digital Cultural Heritage sector. Thanks to a bottom up approach, the formulated recommendations propose concrete solutions which could overcome the global challenges in order to:
• face the global competition,
• take advantage of new developments, techniques and expanding markets,
• show the opportunities of culture as a lever of growth.
Many questions have been raised - How can European SME’s and cultural organisations get involved and profit from internationalisation? How to prevent the brain drain? How to usher cooperation and knowledge transfer between sectors? How to share and experiment new methods to foster pull factors? and a set of five main recommendations did result from the discussions, addressing the following topics:
• Economy
• Cooperation
• Knowledge Transfer
• Methods
• Pull factors
Potential Impact:
First, from many aspects, the SmartCulture project can be seen as a large-scale Digital Cultural Heritage benchmark as it has identified and inventoried:
• Stakeholders and infrastructures;
• Strenghths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats;
• Research initiatives and priorities;
• Actions to be held and financial opportunities to be found;
• Good practices;
• Internationalisation strategies.
By opening up the hidden social and economic potential of the Digital Cultural Heritage sector, the 13 SmartCulture partners have underlined new market opportunities which could contribute to European growth and competitiveness.
Secondly, through the implementation and accompanying measures, the 8 partner regions have fostered the quadruple helix relationships and crossfertilization, which significally increased exchange, dialogue, knowledge transfer and networking on regional, European and international levels. In addition, the Political, Technical and Scientific Committees’ meetings organised in each region have been particularly efficient in building an innovation friendly ecosystem by creating a strong and multi-disciplinary End-User Advisory Board for strategic purposes. Regional participants have directed the work to be performed and seized its opportunities by planning future initiatives and building smart specialization strategies (as it is the case in Basque Country and Sofia regions for instance).
Thirdly, the pilot actions implemented in each region and promoted through the brochure “New Technologies and Digital Growth in Cultural and Creative Industries: 8 case studies”, as well as the political and technical recommendations provided by key players as regards the Digital Agenda, will most certainly have a long-term impact as they can be replicated in any local environment across Europe and beyond, which will consequently increase the number of Digital Cultural Heritage projects and impact on the quality life of culturally diverse citizens.
Finally, the SmartCulture results will also be used by Academia for the design of new research projects and training programmes which could create a fruitful network for the next generation of professionals. New research perspectives will also result be published: a common publication about the concept of SmartCulture Economy is currently designed by the University of Birmingham (UK) and the Università di comunicazione e lingue (Italy) and will be published in August 2016.
The SMARTCULTURE project has developed a core set of indicators that are instrumental in measuring the expected impacts towards the Work Program. In this way, the Consortium has evaluated its actions by following criteria that cover the economic and the social aspects both on regional and European levels.
The SmartCulture project aimed to set up a new network of research driven clusters in Europe specialized in the cultural sector, and in particular, in the application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to Cultural Heritage. The project will focus on the use of ICT technologies in order to empower citizens to become actively involved in their access to cultural heritage and cultural resources.
The following items representing the expected impacts of the Regions of Knowledge projects have been considered as the starting point in the definition of SmartCulture indicators:
1- Boosting the competiveness of research-driven clusters in the domains of Research Agenda and resource efficient technologies Europe-wide and globally, unlocking new business opportunities for participating SMEs.
2- Build sustainable partnerships between academia and business within clusters and transnational across clusters and regions, facilitating the knowledge transfer from academia to business in order to develop novel services, products and processes.
3- Contribution to the development of smart specialisation strategies of regions through R&D and Innovation in the field of Research Agenda and resource efficient technologies.
4- New private and public investments in R&D and Innovation at regional level driven by regional strategies based on business needs and an integrated Joint Action Plan, access to finance facilitated for SMEs, synergies created with other EU and national funding sources.
5- Create an innovation friendly ecosystem in the regions through close and sustainable collaboration and networking between universities, research centres, business, local policy makers and other stakeholders.
6- Include more European regions into the European Research Area (ERA) while involving relevant regional stakeholder for the design of research agendas.
✓ Expected economic impact:
European cultural and creative industries (CCI) are global leaders and competitive exporters in a wide range of fields. Not only they are a key partner in the creation of the European identity, but they have become an economic sector with an important growth rate. As stated in the Priority Sector Report Creative and Cultural Industries, there is a strong relationship between the existence of creative and cultural industries and regional prosperity.
In 2007, the Commission proposed a European agenda for culture. Among the broad objectives, it was clearly recognized that cultural industries and the creative sector were a substantial contributor to the European GDP, growth and employment. Following one of the conclusions of the communication, SmartCulture explored and promoted the role of culture in supporting and fostering creativity and innovation at regional and European level.
Creativity is the basis for social and technological innovation, and therefore an important driver of growth, competitiveness and jobs in the EU.
Recently, many studies have shown that the cultural and creative industries represent highly innovative companies with a great economic potential and are one of Europe's most dynamic sectors, contributing around 2.6 % to the EU GDP, with a high growth potential, and providing quality jobs to around 5 million people across EU-27. A green paper of April 2010 on Unlocking the potential of cultural and creative industries gives requirements of a creative environment for Europe’s CCIs (Creative and Cultural Industries), covering areas necessary to effectively unlock their potential, in particular at the European level, from 350 answers from public authorities, the general public and civil society bodies – including companies – active in the cultural field across Europe.
Combined with globalisation, the speed at which digital information and communication technologies (ICTs) are being developed and deployed greatly impacts all sectors of CCIs. While it does create opportunities in terms of the scope of production and distribution, it also changes the traditional production and consumption models and comes with huge adaptation costs, in particular relating to the digital shift. To be able to provide a culturally diverse offer of services to customers, entrepreneurs must be given appropriate framework conditions.
The SmartCulture project proposed new opportunities and good practices for innovative digital access to cultural resources, digital cultural mediation, cultural democratization and sustainable access to cultural heritage to a wider range of users.
Thanks to the cross fertilisation enhanced by the Consortium and to the events organised at regional and European level, the project has also stimulated the collaboration between ICT enterprises, creative and cultural organizationsand research institutes from Europe and beyond, building a new network of professionals, specialised in the application of digital media to cultural heritage.
✓ Expected social impact
Culture lies at the heart of human development and civilisation. Culture can be summarised as a set of distinctive spiritual and material traits that characterize a society and social group. It embraces literature and arts as well as ways of life, value systems, traditions and beliefs. Indeed, Europeans share a common Cultural Heritage, and enjoy and value a rich cultural and linguistic diversity.
As stated in the Communication on a European agenda for culture in a globalising world, the EU has a unique role to play in promoting its cultural richness and diversity both in Europe and worldwide.
The EU Work Plan for Culture 2011-2014 highlights the importance to identify policies and good practices of public arts and cultural institutions to promote better access to and wider participation in culture, including by disadvantaged groups and groups experiencing poverty and social exclusion, according to the objectives of the European Agenda for Culture and requirements from the Lisbon Treaty.
One priority of Europe 2020 strategy is smart growth that by means of so-called flagship initiatives would allow improving three targeted sectors: education with a view to encouraging people to learn, study and update their skills, research/innovation enabling the creation of new products/services that generate growth and jobs and help address social challenges and digital society by using information and communication technologies.
The SmartCulture project directly contributed to smart growth through the flagship initiative “Digital Agenda for Europe”. Indeed beyond the cultural issues, SmartCulture also contributed to reach the Digital Agenda for Europe (DAE) priority to boost “smart, sustainable and inclusive growth” in:
• Strengthening research, technological development and innovation in the digital culture sector;
• Enhancing access to, and use and quality of, information and communication, with cultural e-services targeted to disadvantaged social groups and/or areas;
• Promoting social inclusion through lifelong learning and cultural resources for knowledge and long run impact;
• Providing 5 recommendations as regards an international strategy for the DAE.
✓ Evaluation of SmartCulture indicators/ estimated impacts
The evolution of the indicators has been evaluated two times during the project duration corresponding to the 2 Periods: from month 1 to month 18 and from month 19 to month 36. The intermediary evaluation only served to monitoring the progress of the project’s objectives, because the indicators were elaborated in the perspective of being reached only at the end of the project.
As mentioned in Deliverable 1.2 there are besides within the 11 indicators defined by the project, two quantitative ones which are extremely delicate to estimate and which are difficult to evaluate at this moment. These are the indicators SI4 and SI5, representing the amount of the funding from regions. As an example the Smart Specialization Strategy for Nord-Pas de Calais Region has an overall budget of 203 millions euros, however no specific budget is allowed to each of the 6 broad areas. Two of these areas could concerns the SmartCulture field, but as each project will be funded independently, the amount given is an estimation which could potentially not be applied in reality.
The results achieved during 3 years by the project’s partners were measured and we concluded that the SmartCulture regions have reached and gone beyond its set indicators, which confirm the impact on the SmartCulture activities and the growing importance of the Digital Cultural Heritage field across Europe and beyond.
List of Websites:
For more information : http://www.smartculture.eu/
Discover best practices in the Digital Cultural Heritage field : http://smartculture.projects.cavi.au.dk/VirtualStudyTours/
Join SmartCulture community on LinkedIn : www.linkedin.com/grp/home?gid=5059379
Watch the last SmartCulture video : https://vimeo.com/147300826
