Applying New solutions for Cultural Heritage protection by Innovative, Scientific, social and economic Engagement

Project Information

ANCHISE

Grant agreement ID: 101094824

DOI

10.3030/101094824

Project closed

EC signature date 14 December 2022

Start date 1 February 2023

End date 31 January 2026

Funded under

• Culture, creativity and inclusive society

Total cost

€ 4 037 258,75

EU contribution

€ 4 037 258,75

Coordinated by

ECOLE FRANCAISE D'ATHENES
Greece

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ANCHISE (Applying New solutions for Cultural Heritage protection by Innovative, Scientific, social and economic Engagement)

Reporting period: 2023-02-01 to 2024-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

ANCHISE - ‘Applying New solutions for Cultural Heritage protection by Innovative, Scientific, social and economic Engagement’ is a multidisciplinary project which aims at offering European societies efficient methods, knowledge and toolkit to enhance the protection of cultural heritage against looting and illicit trafficking. ANCHISE builds on the experiences and the network of experts developed during the former project H2020 NETCHER (GA 822585) in order to bridge the gap between the various involved communities and develop replicable solutions. Our assumption is that addressing this topic implies a bottom-up and user-centric approach at every stage of the analysis, which will allow us to develop replicable and comprehensive solutions in line with the needs of the various communities involved. Crossing the methodology of networking that has proved its efficiency in the H2020 NETCHER project with the innovative results of new technologies developments (H2020 PREVISION, H2020 MAGNETO), ANCHISE aims at developing a thorough research work on the phenomenon and its current solutions which will enable the creation of an operational set of tools applicable for European contexts and replicable in other situations internationally. The aim of the project is to bring coordinated solutions to the key existing needs in the domain of cultural heritage protection: 1) Understand, 2) Prevent, 3) Act, 4) Repair.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

In order to complete its mission, ANCHISE focuses on four (4) achievements which correspond to four work packages (WP):

Objective 1 (WP2) – Technology watch, evaluation and adoption: the Evaluation of technologies on – or close to – the market with user-centric methods in order to help bridge the gap between technologies and the market (looting detection, detection of neglected or abandoned heritage, object identification and traceability, object marking The main objective of the WP2 is to identify a broad range of technologies, tools and methods (TTM) that can be implemented in the illicit trafficking combat (ITC). We will look at already existing ones, employed in Europe and beyond, as well as others that may be potentially adopted and up taken by the law enforcement community and cultural heritage professionals involved in illicit trafficking of cultural goods.

Objective 2 (WP3) - The development of the 6 following object recognition technologies in order to improve the monitoring of cultural site, as well as the documentation, recording and provenance of cultural goods.

1. A tool for multimodal Geographic Information System (GIS) for site protection: satellite and drone photogrammetry (TRL5) ICONEM
2. A tool for object authentication service for heritage collection protection relying on image matching (TRL6) Fraunhofer SIT.
3. A tool for object typology matching service for object identification support at borders (TRL6) PARCS
4. A Shared design for databases of objects (TRL5) The Cyprus Institute,
5. A tool for Semantic analysis, heterogeneous processing and interoperable data (TRL5), ICCS
6. A tool for object authentication service for heritage collection protection relying on spectral fluorescence signature (SFS) INOV (TRL4)

Objective 3 (WP4) – Pilot Experimentation Areas and demonstration : this objectives encompasses our goal to study the sociological and economical contexts of the phenomenon. The objective is set to achieve research work and studies on sociological & economic contexts of looting. This will be done operationally through experimentations of the tools developed within the project through. In order to achieve this result, demonstrations will be organized with local, regional and national stakeholders from different horizons (Museums, Archaeological sites, Frontiers/Borders). The analysis of feedback from stakeholders and refining tools will allow us to overview the impact assessment as well as replicability level of the Anchise toolbox.

Objective 4 (WP5) – Communication, dissemination and community engagement. ANCHISE will provide the professionals with a set of competences and skills to respond to all the different challenges requested by the fight to illicit trafficking of cultural goods. The project will also create a training scheme, addressing all the key stakeholders, to guarantee the rapid implementation of the models and tools developed by ANCHISE.
In order to achieve its goals, a strong coordination needs to be operated in connection with thorough ethical overview of the project (WP1 and WP6)

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The success of ANCHISE is strictly linked to its capacity to set-up a holistic approach and create an interdisciplinary expertise group using state-of-the-art and new technologies and enhancing cross-border cooperation capacities. The project will support the European cultural institutions, LEAs and all the stakeholders to have an up-to-date and accurate toolbox appropriate to fight the illicit trafficking of cultural goods.

As established in the DoA, the impact of the project will be measured through the measurement of the following improvements :
- increased number of seizures of looted cultural objects
- increased protection of collections from cultural heritage institutions
- increased protection of archaeological sites in Europe
- increased open science and research collaborations wider involvement of researchers in the fight against trafficking and increased cross-border collaboration
- citizens become active stakeholders of the fight against illicit trafficking and heritage is widely recognized as a corner stone for European societies.
- Replicability of the processes in extra-European contexts

For the evaluated period, further uptake beside the already planned action cannot be anticipated, mainly because the experimentation as well as the evaluation of its impact haven’t started by M17 and will only do so on M22.