The conclusions set out recommendations to enhance the financing, governance, quality of available data and user-friendliness of the Europeana online collections.

KEY POINTS

What is Europeana?

It is an online joint cultural project for accessing and showcasing European cultural heritage.

Challenges

The conclusions set out a number of challenges that must be met to ensure the continued development of Europeana. These include:

enhancing the technology to allow cultural heritage institutions to connect, share and upload their content;
making the multilingual website more user-friendly;
presenting the content shared in more attractive and more diverse ways;
making its governance more inclusive;
improving the method of funding.

Actions

The conclusions suggest strengthening the cultural and digital innovation value of Europeana by reassessing the core service platform under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), focusing on:

sustaining a multi-sided internet platform* for sharing and (re)using metadata and content;
providing a general multilingual access point to cultural content;
achieving technological advancement;
supporting professional networks such as the Europeana Network Association.

On the basis of these general goals, the conclusions recommend specific targeted actions aimed at the different parties involved in Europeana.

The Europeana operator is invited to take a number of measures, including:

engaging with partner or potential partner organisations particularly in countries where the project is not well known;
exploring possibilities to coordinate with existing EU initiatives particularly in the field of research;
making more systematic contact with EU countries and involving them in policy- and decision-making.

The European Commission is invited to take several measures, including:

presenting an independent review of Europeana to the Council of the European Union by October 2017, including clear directions for its mid- and long-term development;
changing the method of funding to a combination of procurement and grants. The EU will fully support the central coordination of Europeana through procurement, while co-financing cultural user-oriented projects building on Europeana (e.g. thematic collections relating to art history or ‘Europeana 1914-1918’) through grants.

The EU countries are invited to take several measures, including:

further promoting the digitisation of cultural heritage collections, as well as the widest possible access to and reuse of the digital cultural heritage;
supporting Europeana’s activities through voluntary financial contributions to the Europeana Foundation.

The conclusions also invite all of the parties to promote the value of Europeana by also involving the research and innovation, education, tourism, and creative sectors.

BACKGROUND

‘Europeana – A European Digital Library for all’ on the European Commission's website.

* KEY TERMS

Multi-sided platform: this is one of the prevailing models of the internet economy. Multi-sided platforms create value by facilitating interaction between two or more distinct, but interdependent groups. As such the platform is of value to one group of users only if the other groups of users are also present.

MAIN DOCUMENT

Council conclusions on the role of Europeana for the digital access, visibility and use of European cultural heritage (OJ C 212, 14.6.2016, pp. 9–13)

last update 17.01.2017

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