Digitisation of cultural heritage:funding opportunities at EU

level

Luca Martinelli European Commission

DG Information Society and Media

EUscreen Conference Stockholm, 16 September 2011

A Digital Agenda for Cultural Heritage:Where are we?

2005-2010: i2010 Digital libraries initiative• The issue of Digital Libraries has raised a high level of

political attention• Europeana• Improved basic conditions for digitisation, online accessibility

and digital preservation

2010- 2020: European Digital Agenda• Continued effort to bring our cultural heritage online• “…A sustainable financing model for Europeana and

digitisation of cultural heritage…”• Other actions on: orphan and out-of-commerce works,

update Recommendation to Member States, research and innovation, PSI/open data and cultural sector

The work of the Comité des Sages

• Appointed by Commissioners Kroes and Vassiliou in April 2010

• Three personalities–M. Lévy (CEO Publicis)–E. Niggemann (DG German national library)–J. De Decker (Journalist and writer)

• Report presented to the Commission on 10 January 2011

• Stresses the economic aspects next to the cultural aspects

• ‘Access’ is the central concept

Comité des Sages on Europeana

The issue• Europeana central in the strategy

• Should be strengthened to become the reference point for European culture online

Key recommendations:

•Financial and political efforts should be concentrated

•Public funding for digitisation conditional on free accessibility through Europeana

•By 2016 all public domain masterpieces accessible through Europeana

•Europeana to be actively and widely promoted at all levels

Key recommendations:

•Financial and political efforts should be concentrated

•Public funding for digitisation conditional on free accessibility through Europeana

•By 2016 all public domain masterpieces accessible through Europeana

•Europeana to be actively and widely promoted at all levels

Funding issues

The issue• Cost of digitising European cultural heritage is 100 bn euros • Mass-digitisation susceptible to efficiency gains due to scale • Digitisation: an opportunity for new business

Key recommendations : •Step up public investments. The crisis cannot be ignored, but cannot be a reason for not acting

• Involvement of private partners to be encouraged

• Funding of digitisation and of Europeana is a package: MS pay for digitisation, EU pays for Europeana

• Turn digitisation into new development opportunities for European firms

Key recommendations : •Step up public investments. The crisis cannot be ignored, but cannot be a reason for not acting

• Involvement of private partners to be encouraged

• Funding of digitisation and of Europeana is a package: MS pay for digitisation, EU pays for Europeana

• Turn digitisation into new development opportunities for European firms

Public-private partnerships

The issue• Private funds for digitisation are necessary• Cultural institutions enter partnerships ‘unprepared’ and

‘unequipped’

Key recommendations:• Conditions for partnerships:

- Agreements to be made public- Digitised public domain material freely accessible and available in all MS- Same quality of files for cultural institutions

• Maximum time of preferential use is 7 years

• Create favourable conditions for the involvement of European

players in PPPs

Key recommendations:• Conditions for partnerships:

- Agreements to be made public- Digitised public domain material freely accessible and available in all MS- Same quality of files for cultural institutions

• Maximum time of preferential use is 7 years

• Create favourable conditions for the involvement of European

players in PPPs

Commission Recommendation on the digitisation and online

accessibility of cultural material and digital preservation (2006)

• Planned update to take into account:– Evolution of Europeana;– Report by CdS;– Proposal for an Orphan Work

Directive

EuropeanaMore content wanted!

• Still big quantitative difference between Member States in terms of contribution

• Different types of contributions from Member States

• Audiovisual content still too low (~3%)!

• Importance of classics and masterpieces

• A Roadmap with recommendations to increase accessible content is being developed by Commission and Member States

EuropeanaFunding 2008-2013

• eContent plus Programme and Competitiveness and Innovation (CIP) Framework Programme:

• Co-financing available for projects on content aggregation and digitisation

• AV projects:– EFG, EUscreen, Videoactive,…

2014-2020 Connecting Europe Facility

• June 2011: Commission proposal EU budget 2014-2020

• Infrastructure Connecting Europe Facility: energy, transport and digital networks

• 2014-2020: € 40 billion– Energy €9.1 billion– Transport €21.7 billion– ICT/Digital €9.2 billion

Europeana 2014-2020 • Broadband and 9 European Digital

Infrastructures, including:• Enabling access to digital

resources of Europe's culturalheritage – Europeana:

• “Service infrastructure to explore thedigital resources of Europe's museums,libraries, archives and audio-visual

collections”

ICT Research for Cultural Heritage

• Long body of ICT research for culture from 5th to 7th Framework Programmes: access to culture, competence centers on digitisation, digital preservation research

• R&D projects focussed on AV content: Prestospace, Prestoprime, Axes, …

• 2014-2020: Horizon 2020, framework for Research and Innovation (merging of FP, CIP and ETI)

Other EU Programmes 2007-2013

• Culture Programme, in particular cross-border cooperation for cultural actions/cultural heritage

• Media Programme (support to audiovisual industry): possible pilots on digitisation

• 2014-2020: Creative Europe (€ 1.6 billion): Commission proposal

Cohesion policy – Structural Funds

• Community Strategic Guidelines for Cohesion Policy for 2007-13. The priorities are: – Making EU regions more

attractive places to invest and work,

– Improving knowledge and innovation for growth,

– Creating more and better jobs.

Fields for Regional Policy intervention (ERDF)

Transport

RDT &

innovation

Environment

Social infrastructure

ICT

Energy

1 Transport 28%

2 RTD & innovation 24%

3 Environmental protection and riskprevention 19%

4 Investment in social infrastructure 6.2%

5 Information society 5.6%

6 Energy 4%

7 Urban and rural regeneration 3.8%

8 Technical assistance 3%

9 Tourism 2.4%

10 Culture 2.2%

11 Strenghtening institutional capacity atnational, regional and local level 0.6%

12 Improving access to employment 0.4%

13 Improving human capital 0.4%

14 Adaptability of workers and firms 0.3%

15 Reduction of additional costs hinderingthe outermost regions development 0.2%

16 Reforms in the fields of employment andinclusion 0.1%

17 Improving the social inclusion of less-favoured persons 0.1%

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No specific allocations for the digitisation of cultural heritage

European Regional Development Fund (ERDF):

support to Information Society

Reasoning: • ICT is a catalyst for many forms of innovation

and a key element of the knowledge economy In all regions, SF support is possible for:• Promoting the access to, take up, and efficient

use of ICTs by SMEs• Development of e-services and applications • Action plans for small enterprisesIn Convergence regions, it is also possible

for :• Content, services and applications• Improvement of secure access to and

development of on-line public services

European Social Fund: support to digitisation of cultural heritage

(possible in all EU regions)

• Training actions to adapt/create skills on digitisation and digital preservation technologies. Target: staff employed by cultural institutions (libraries, archives, museums), or unemployed persons.

• Education actions: creation of university curricula and diplomas on digital curation (experts in management of the full life cycle of digital assets), in order to create necessary skills and promote employment in this field.

• Actions to fight unemployment: creation of employment opportunities for unemployed people, as participants in digitisation projects.

European Investment Bank: are digitisation projects eligible? • Memory institutions’ digitisation efforts are

eligible for EIB support under its knowledge economy - i2i initiative (innovation and ICT infrastructure, including e-content)

• Primary goal: to resolve bottlenecks for innovation and ICT investments due to market imperfections

• The EIB can finance maximum 50% of the total project cost. Eligible are• tangible assets (hardware, equipment, buildings) as well as • intangible assets (software development costs, training

costs, …)

European Investment Bank: are digitisation projects eligible?

• Both public promoters (local authorities, regional and central government) and private promoters – or a combination of both – are eligible

• Combination with other EU or national funds is possible

• EIB undertakes an economic and technical due diligence for projects exceeding 25 million Euro

Digitisation of cultural heritage:Overview of EU funding opportunities

• EU programmes:– Innovation: CIP-ICT-PSP– R&D: ICT research- Culture: MEDIA and Culture

Programme- (Infrastructures: Connecting

Europe Facility)

• Structural Funds• European Investment Bank

Comité des Sages – the new Renaissance

• “Digitisation is more than a technical option, it is a moral obligation”

Every European digital