Activities

The objective of the Communities Pillar is to create a new community of researchers, professionals, and technological service providers committed to being the driving force for the establishment of the European Collaborative Cloud on Cultural Heritage. It intends to create value through a new collaborative digital dimension for Cultural Heritage preservation, documentation, analysis, conservation-restoration, interpretation and re-use. It aims at identifying the practices and needs of the various communities involved, to ensure that the methods, principles and tools developed in ECHOES are responding to their real expectations. It will create a community-led strategy for capacity-building activities,and develop a specific ECHOES curriculum to ensure adequate training for professionals, encouraging the adoption and use of the Cloud.

Build a new Community

This Work Package builds a new, federated community of cultural heritage professionals and technological experts around the Cloud. It provides ECHOES with mapping and a typology of relevant actors working on tangible, intangible, and digital cultural heritage. It develops a strategy and a methodology to include them and their needs in Cloud development and future governance and implements them through various activities in collaboration with professional organisations. As a community, ECHOES will pay particular attention to the needs of marginalised communities, young professionals and early-stage researchers, and citizen scientists.

Capacity building and Training

This Work Package aims to raise awareness and understanding of the benefits of using ECCCH tools and resources within various communities. This will be achieved by delivering sustainable capacity-building activities and resources. Our goal is to help people develop the knowledge, skills, and practices needed for effective data sharing and reuse.
By identifying and applying the skills and knowledge held within the community and consortium, we will empower individuals and organizations to make the most of the available resources. Ultimately, we want to ensure that everyone can fully utilize and benefit from the tools and data provided by ECCCH.

The Knowledge Pillar will address the technical structure of the cloud by proposing a horizontal, distributed approach that serves all stakeholders. It will create both the cloud infrastructure and the conceptual and physical organization of the knowledge. Based on inputs from the CH communities (including use cases, other projects, requirements analysis, etc.) and the expertise of project partners, the Knowledge Pillar will initiate the work on the technical framework, infrastructure and the CH Knowledge Base (KB) in order to support the Digital Continuum. As such, the Knowledge Pillar will build the heart of the ECHOES project and the future ECCCH ecosystem.

Setting the Cloud Environment

This Work Package provides a flexible technical framework and infrastructure to set up the cultural heritage cloud environment. Key components planned to be provided within this extensible and open environment include the CH Knowledge Base with data integration routines, the Single Entry Point for the end users, a set of components to support modular workflows or applications (e.g. AAI), as well as operational level support service and monitoring.

Digital Commons Knowledge-Base

This Work Package is dedicated to creating digital commons using Heritage Digital Twins from various cultural heritage sources. It ensures digital continuity and enables reuse within the ECCCH’s cloud environment for the public, promoting open-data driven collaboration. It uses top-down and bottom-up methodologies to provide tools for creating, enriching, and interacting with Digital Twins. A Knowledge Base will be developed, and tools will be created to ensure data quality and integrity. ECHOES will address key cultural heritage challenges and provide replicable examples for remote areas and small to medium museums.

The Innovation Pillar has a double objective providing Vertical Applications e.g. exemplar tools that access the ECHOES Cloud the infrastructure for deploying and accessing them, and finally ensuring that the ecosystem is sound and healthy by setting up a framework for his continuous assessment.

Vertical Applications

This Work Package focuses on creating and populating with vertical Applications the digital platform for cultural heritage professionals. The goal is to develop user-friendly applications that address specific needs in the field, such as conservation, transcription, and collection management. These applications will use advanced technologies to make cultural heritage work more efficient and collaborative. The Work Package also aims to build a framework that allows for easy access to components and their integration for creation of new tools and encourages community growth. By providing resources and support to the community we seek to expand its ecosystem and make its tools accessible to a wide range of users in the cultural heritage sector.

Cloud Assessment Framework

The objective of this Work Package is to establish a long-term framework for the continuous monitoring and evaluation of the entire ECCCH digital ecosystem. This encompasses the assessment of essential services, vertical applications, and the integration of new data, tools, and services generated from cascading grants and other ECCCH calls. At a cloud-wide level, this Work Package will develop innovative tools for the in-depth monitoring, analysis, visualisation, and reporting of various metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) related to the use, deployment, and acceptance of ECCCH tools and services. This will facilitate both internal and external assessments of the cloud. For specific applications and services, we will offer a unified evaluation framework to implement pilot projects conducted by the consortium or by other ECCCH projects.

The aptly-named Sustainability Pillar has at heart to develop the European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage’s (ECCCH) long-term strategy, and to etch the work of its communities into stone. The main priority is to guarantee that the Cloud is legally, economically, socially and environmentally viable in the long-run; and it is of the utmost importance that sustainability does not come at the expense of quality. The Pillar will thus make sure that the ECCCH stays up to national, European and international standards, while maintaining its leading-edge position over time, by designing a most agile governance system.

Cloud Governance

The main objective of this Work Package is to eventually establish the European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage’s (ECCCH) legal entity. To take on this massive but exciting challenge, the first step will be the definition of base requirements and ethical standards, before the designing and the drafting of the governance system begins. This system will not only need to be a solid legal framework, built to ensure that actors at every level are properly represented, but also an agile structure, capable of enduring time and adapting to change. To this end, the consultation of the communities and the stakeholders will be the spearhead of our work.

Long-term Sustainability

This Work Package focuses on ensuring the long-term sustainability of the ECHOES. Its objectives include extending ECHOES’s excellence within the EU and globally, ensuring its long-term viability and financial security through an Environmental, Social and Governance-based Business Plan, and generating socio-economic, environmental, and cultural benefits. Key activities involve developing a Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda, fostering multi-level investments, and assessing ECHOES’s sustainability impact to demonstrate its added value in the cultural heritage sector.

Activities under the Transversal Pillar aim to establish robust long-term governance and management for the project, ensuring all tasks comply with commitments and effectively achieve the expected results. Communication is key as the project seeks to engage professionals, heritage institutions, managers, decision-makers, and the public, highlighting the transformative impact of the ECCCH. Additionally, ECHOES will leverage existing datasets and tools, foster diverse participation through a grants program, and enhance cross-domain and interdisciplinary collaboration through collaborative research scenarios. At the end of the project, ECHOES will transfer governance to a legal entity to sustain its impact.