European Programme Digital Cultural Assets

Call for Proposals

 

The Call for H2020-REFLECTIVE-6-2015 “Innovation ecosystems of digital cultural assets” sub call of H2020-REFLECTIVE-2014-2015 “Reflective societies: cultural heritage and European identities” has been opened by the European Commission, Directorate Research and Innovation.

 

The context in which the Call for Proposals H2020-REFLECTIVE-6-2015 “Innovation ecosystems of digital cultural assets” sub call of H2020-REFLECTIVE-2014-2015 “Reflective societies: cultural heritage and European identities” acts is the digital innovation introduced in everyone’s life. Indeed, the digital age has revolutionised our habits, behaviours and expectations. The utilisation of digital technologies for research in the humanities and social sciences demonstrates the need for innovation at the service of scholarship and its advancement. The shift to digital is impacting on identities and cultures and transforming the shape of the knowledge that we will transmit to future generations as well as the means by which we can interact with it.

 

The specific challenge of the current Call for Proposals H2020-REFLECTIVE-6-2015 “Innovation ecosystems of digital cultural assets” sub call of H2020-REFLECTIVE-2014-2015 “Reflective societies: cultural heritage and European identities” responds to the growing urge to share the wealth of cultural resources, research and knowledge in our collections and recognises that new cultural assets are continually created. It will show how digital cultural resources can promote creativity and generate innovation in research design and methodology, lead to richer interpretations of the past, bring new perspectives to questions of identity and culture, and generate societal and economic benefits. Europe’s vast cultural heritage can be transformed into digital assets, whose integration and reuse through research-led methods can create value for European cultural institutions and heritage, tourism and the cultural and creative industries. The objective is to enhance the analysis of cultural resources to improve our understanding of how European identity can be traced, constructed or debated, and to use those resources to foster innovation across sectors.

 

The purpose of the Call for Proposals H2020-REFLECTIVE-6-2015 “Innovation ecosystems of digital cultural assets” sub call of H2020-REFLECTIVE-2014-2015 “Reflective societies: cultural heritage and European identities” is to support and promote access to and reuse of digital cultural heritage resources (available in scientific collections, archives, museums, libraries and cultural heritage sites) as part of research and innovation. Projects should enable new models and demonstrations of the analysis, interpretation and understanding of Europe's cultural and intellectual history and/or capitalising on state of the art technologies (e.g. mobile and wearable devices), bring cultural content to new audiences in novel ways, through the development of new environments, applications, tools, and services for digital cultural resources in scientific collections, archives, museums, libraries and cultural heritage sites.

 

The aims of the projects funded by the Call for Proposals H2020-REFLECTIVE-6-2015 “Innovation ecosystems of digital cultural assets” sub call of H2020-REFLECTIVE-2014-2015 “Reflective societies: cultural heritage and European identities” are to:

- develop technologies or services in the context of humanities research perspectives (identity, culture, questions of place, historical and cultural knowledge)

- facilitate the access, reuse and exploitation of digital cultural resources meeting real user needs.

- illustrate how they allow new research questions to be formulated on the basis of cross-collaboration

- stimulate cross-border, cross-lingual multi-disciplinary reuse of Europe's cultural heritage, enabling collaboration and partnerships and co-production of knowledge across sectors and communities of researchers and users.

- demonstrate appropriate methods of re-using and repurposing digital assets, paving the way for wider exploitation of Europe's cultural resources and boosting innovation.

 

Activities foreseen by proposals under the Call H2020-REFLECTIVE-6-2015 “Innovation ecosystems of digital cultural assets” sub call of H2020-REFLECTIVE-2014-2015 “Reflective societies: cultural heritage and European identities” it is expected to have the following impact:

- stimulate new research perspectives for the humanities and social science communities, promote further the use of digital cultural heritage allowing its reinterpretation towards the development of a new shared culture in Europe.

 

- provide innovative and creative methods for approaching cultural assets and generate applications and services to access and exploit the rich and diverse European digital cultural heritage in a sustainable way.

- foster collaboration between those with primary expertise in the interpretation of cultural data and researchers with complementary expertise in digital and interactive frameworks.

 

The ultimate goals of projects under the current Call H2020-REFLECTIVE-6-2015 “Innovation ecosystems of digital cultural assets” sub call of H2020-REFLECTIVE-2014-2015 “Reflective societies: cultural heritage and European identities” are to strengthen the European capability in creating new forms of digital entertainment and engagement based on cultural heritage and to promote the use of new technologies such as new media and new modalities of access. In addition these activities will create a viable and sustainable cross-border, cross-lingual and/or cross-sector digital exploitation of European digital cultural heritage assets by putting into place new networks of researchers, scholars, ICT professionals and specialists of digital heritage.

 

Under the current Call for Proposals H2020-REFLECTIVE-6-2015 “Innovation ecosystems of digital cultural assets” sub call of H2020-REFLECTIVE-2014-2015 “Reflective societies: cultural heritage and European identities”, eligible proposals will be innovation actions. That is actions primarily consisting of activities directly aiming at producing plans and arrangements or designs for new, altered or improved products, processes or services. For this purpose they may include prototyping, testing, demonstrating, piloting, large-scale product validation and market replication.

 

The total budget earmarked for the co-financing of the action is estimated at EUR 10 000 000 maximum. The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU between EUR 2 000 000 and 4 000 000 would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts. The funding rate is 70% (except for non-profit legal entities, where a rate of 100% applies).

 

The deadline for submitting proposals in the framework of the current Call for Proposals H2020-REFLECTIVE-6-2015 “Innovation ecosystems of digital cultural assets” sub call of H2020-REFLECTIVE-2014-2015 “Reflective societies: cultural heritage and European identities” is 28 May 2015.

 

Further information on the current call for proposals is available on the European Commission’s web site at: http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/topics/2104-reflective-6-2015.html#tab1