ECHOES: European Cloud for Heritage Open Science - Semantic Computing Research Group (SeCo)

Project Goal

ECHOES aims to create the European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage (ECCCH) as a shared platform for heritage professionals and researchers to access data, innovative scientific and training resources and advanced digital tools co-developed by the heritage community according to their specific needs. ECHOES will bring together fragmented communities of the Cultural Heritage (CH) field, which consists of various actors from different sectors and disciplines, into a new community around the Digital Commons. Going beyond the strict focus on assets and the mere digitisation of Heritage, ECHOES intends to generate a visionary paradigm shift in the CH field. Adopting a holistic approach, ECHOES will also enable digitising the existing knowledge of Heritage objects, whether tangible or intangible. It will create a digital environment enabling collaborative analysis of CH assets, facts, and phenomena. In this environment, actors – humans or Artificial Intelligence – can develop their interpretations, thereby enriching the knowledge of CH and their surroundings. The digital environment proposed by ECHOES will empower users to interact with, manipulate and enrich Digital Twins, leading to new, jointly developed scientific knowledge. The ECCCH built by ECHOES is anchored in the principles of Open Access and Open Science. It thus promotes inclusion and democratises access to knowledge and digital assets, which are understood as public goods by and for all. This digital environment will allow the creation of a new generation of heritage objects, the Digital Commons, which are semantically rich and collectively produced – we see this as “the heritage of tomorrow”. At the end of the project, ECHOES will deliver a single platform to integrate results of EU and national projects on CH. The ECCCH will be sustainable thanks to its inclusive legal entity, which will be created before the end of ECHOES.

The Cultural Heritage Cloud is a large-scale European Union initiative for a digital infrastructure that will connect cultural heritage institutions and professionals across the EU. It will develop specific digital collaborative tools for the sector while removing barriers for smaller and remote institutions. The initiative was launched in 2023 based on the expert group report (Brunet et al., 2022) below.

Press Release June 2024

The ECHOES consortium was selected to oversee the creation of a Collaborative European Cloud for Cultural Heritage

In June 2022, the European Commission announced its commitment to supporting the creation of a collaborative cloud for cultural heritage. This initiative aims to strengthen connections between various heritage institutions and sector professionals, enhancing the understanding, documentation, preservation, and promotion of both tangible and intangible cultural heritage across Europe. The initiative will establish a digital ecosystem to interconnect and harmonise practices related to digital objects.

Funded under the Horizon Europe program, the Cloud for Cultural Heritage has been allocated a budget of €110 million until 2025, marking the largest investment ever made in Europe for a cultural heritage initiative and more broadly in the humanities and social sciences (HSS). Two calls for proposals were launched in 2023, with additional calls planned for 2024 and 2025.

The European Cloud for Heritage OpEn Science (ECHOES) project, led by CNRS under the scientific coordination of Xavier Rodier, Director of MSH Val de Loire, has won the Horizon Europe 2023 call "A European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage" (HORIZON-CL2-2023-HERITAGE-ECCCH-01-01). ECHOES has been awarded €25 million for five years of work (2024 – 2029). The project aims to create the collaborative cloud, a European reference platform for both tangible and intangible cultural heritage professionals.

For the ECHOES project, CNRS, together with CNR (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Italy) and FSP (Fondation des Sciences du Patrimoine), has formed a consortium of 51 European partners. These partners include research organisations, networks representing cultural heritage communities (museums, libraries, archives, restoration, etc.), universities, and private sector entities. As a pilot project, ECHOES aspires to create the infrastructure and legal entity for the cloud in collaboration with and for the cultural heritage communities. ECHOES promotes a holistic approach to digital transformation, encouraging the co-construction of knowledge.

The ECHOES project will foster the emergence of Digital Commons through this digital environment, allowing collective enrichment and analysis of cultural heritage objects, facts, or phenomena. Actors—both human and artificial intelligence (AI)—will be able to develop their interpretations and thus contribute to the construction of knowledge. Thanks to a transparent governance approach and the application of open science principles, ECHOES will also integrate other European and national projects within the cloud.

Project Partners

1 CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRSFrance Coordinator
2 UNIVERSITE DE TOURS FR Affiliated
3 CY CERGY PARIS UNIVERSITE France Affiliated
4 CONSIGLIO NAZIONALE DELLE RICERCHE Italy Partner
5 FONDAZIONE ISTITUTO ITALIANO DI TECNOLOGIA Italy Affiliated
6 CENTRO DI RICERCA, SVILUPPO E STUDI SUPERIORI IN SAR Italy Affiliated
7 FONDATION DES SCIENCES DU PATRIMOINE France Partner
8 Institut national du patrimoine FR Affiliated
9 STICHTING EUROPEANA Netherlands Partner
10 Vereniging Europeana Network Netherlands Affiliated
11 INSTYTUT CHEMII BIOORGANICZNEJ POLSKIEJ AKADEMII NPL Partner
12 IDRYMA TECHNOLOGIAS KAI EREVNAS Greece Partner
13 FRAUNHOFER GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FORDERUNG DER ANGDE Partner
14 Koninklijk Instituut voor het Kunstpatrimonium Belgium Partner
15 THE CYPRUS INSTITUTE Cyprus Partner
16 UNIVERSITAT POLITECNICA DE CATALUNYA ES Partner
17 HELSINGIN YLIOPISTO FI Partner
18 OSTERREICHISCHE NATIONALBIBLIOTHEK Austria Partner
19 THE NATIONAL GALLERY UK Partner
20 MEDIA SOLUTION CENTER BADEN-WURTTEMBERG E.V. DE Partner
21 STICHTING NEDERLANDS INSTITUUT VOORBEELD EN GELUNL Partner
22 ARIADNE RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURE Belgium Partner
23 UNIVERSITY OF YORK UK Affiliated
24 PIN SOC.CONS. A R.L. - SERVIZI DIDATTICI E SCIENTIFICI PE IT Affiliated
25 PRISMA CULTURA S.R.L. IT Affiliated
26 DEUTSCHER MUSEUMSBUND EV Germany Partner
27 CONFEDERATION EUROPEENNE DES ORGANISATIONS DE Belgium Partner
28 CONSEIL INTERNATIONAL DES MONUMENTSET DES SITES FR Partner
29 RESEAU EUROPEEN POUR LE MANAGEMENT ET LES POLIT Belgium Partner
30 UNIVERSITEIT ANTWERPEN BE Affiliated
31 UNIVERSITAT DE BARCELONA ES Affiliated
32 STICHTING ARCHIVES PORTAL EUROPE FOUNDATION Netherlands Partner
33 Comissão Nacional Portuguesa do Conselho Internaciona PT Partner
34 STICHTING EGI NL Partner
35 NATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURES FOR RESEARCH AND TECHNEL Affiliated
36 DIGITAL RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURE FOR THE ARTS AND FR Partner
37 OESTERREICHISCHE AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN AT Affiliated
38 CENTAR ZA DIGITALNE HUMANISTICKE NAUKE RS Affiliated
39 ATHINA-EREVNITIKO KENTRO KAINOTOMIAS STIS TECHNOEL Affiliated
40 CLARIN ERIC Netherlands Partner
41 ETT SPA IT Partner
42 M.E.T.A SRL IT Affiliated
43 Talia S.r.l. IT Affiliated
44 SPARNA FR Partner
45 CONFERENCIA DE RECTORES DE LAS UNIVERSIDADES DEL ES Associated
46 TIME MACHINE ORGANISATION (TMO)- ORGANISATION FUAT Associated
47 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN, NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IE Associated
48 STICHTING LIBER NL Associated
49 NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF HUNGARY HU Associated
50 RIKSANTIKVARIEAMBETET SE Associated
51 MICHAEL CULTURE Associated
Role of the SeCo Group in ECHOES

The work of the Semantic Computing Research Group (SeCo) is related especially to the Work Package 7 ''Digital Commons Knowledge-Base'' of the project with the following general objectives:
- Define the ontological structure of the Heritage Digital Twin and its operative / implementation tools.
- Conceptualize the digital continuum of the ECCCH data environment, in order to FAIR-ify its data.
- Ensure formal representation of data quality, relevance and value for the CH communities of use.
- Define the Knowledge Base and populate it.
- Demonstrate the use of the Knowledge Base.
In particular, the plan is to re-use solutions developed for the Finnish Linked Open Data infrastructure in the FIN-CLARIAH initiative and SAMPO model and series of systems on an European scale.
For more details about the project, see the ECHOES homepage.

Contact Persons

Dr. Jouni Tuominen (PI),
University of Helsinki, Helsinki Centre for Digital Humanities (HELDIG) and Helsinki Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities (HSSH)

Prof. Eero Hyvönen,
Aalto University and University of Helsinki, Helsinki Centre for Digital Humanities (HELDIG)

Publications

2022

Pere Brunet, Livio de Luca, Eero Hyvönen, Adeline Joffres, Peter Plassmayer, Martijn Pronk, Roberto Scopigno and Gabor Sonkoly: Report on a European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage. Ex-ante Impact Assessment. European Commission, Directorate-general for Research and Innovation, March, 2022. 108 pp. bib pdf link

Project Goal

Press Release June 2024

Project Partners

Role of the SeCo Group in ECHOES

Contact Persons

Publications

2022