Periodic Reporting for period 1 - DIGICHer (Digitisation of cultural heritage of minority communities for equity and renewed engagement)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2024-02-01 do 2025-04-30
Cultural heritage (CH) is a cornerstone of Europe’s identity, cohesion and collective memory. Yet, the digitisation of CH has historically marginalised minority communities, whose values and practices have often been excluded or misrepresented in institutional CH processes. While digitisation promises increased access and preservation, it also risks perpetuating historical inequalities when conducted without inclusive frameworks, ethical oversight, and community engagement. The lack of standardised methodologies addressing cultural sensitivity, legal rights, and participatory governance remains a critical gap in the European CH landscape. The DIGICHer addresses this challenge by rethinking how CH digitisation can be conducted in ways that foster equity, inclusion, and sustainability, particularly for minority and underrepresented communities.
It does so by integrating legal, socio-economic, technical, and ethical insights into a co-designed community-validated framework for CH digitisation. The project brings together researchers, CH institutions, minority representatives, and policymakers to collaboratively design new tools and recommendations that recognise community agency, respect cultural diversity, and build long-term resilience in digital CH practices. Through design thinking, participatory research, and data science, DIGICHer is developing methodologies and decision-support tools that will enable CH institutions and policymakers to make informed and inclusive decisions. The project works with Sámi, Ladin, and Jewish communities (alongside its broader European scope) to ensure cultural specificity while maintaining scalability and policy relevance. The expected impact is a transformation of how Europe governs the digitisation of CH to be technologically advanced and socially just, representative, and future-ready.
The project is interdisciplinary, integrating social sciences and humanities (SSH) throughout.
It does so by integrating legal, socio-economic, technical, and ethical insights into a co-designed community-validated framework for CH digitisation. The project brings together researchers, CH institutions, minority representatives, and policymakers to collaboratively design new tools and recommendations that recognise community agency, respect cultural diversity, and build long-term resilience in digital CH practices. Through design thinking, participatory research, and data science, DIGICHer is developing methodologies and decision-support tools that will enable CH institutions and policymakers to make informed and inclusive decisions. The project works with Sámi, Ladin, and Jewish communities (alongside its broader European scope) to ensure cultural specificity while maintaining scalability and policy relevance. The expected impact is a transformation of how Europe governs the digitisation of CH to be technologically advanced and socially just, representative, and future-ready.
The project is interdisciplinary, integrating social sciences and humanities (SSH) throughout.
During M1-M15, the project has made significant technical and scientific progress toward enabling more inclusive, ethical, and sustainable digitisation of CH, particularly for Europe’s minority communities. Central to this effort has been the development of a multi-layered analytical foundation, combining legal, socio-economic, educational, and technological perspectives, to inform a co-designed framework for equitable CH digitisation.
Key work included a comparative mapping of digitisation practices and stakeholder roles (WP1), a legal and policy analysis of minority rights in digital heritage contexts (WP2), a multi-criteria evaluation of socio-economic and educational factors shaping inclusive CH practices (WP3), and the creation of an initial technical infrastructure for data-driven decision support (WP4). These foundational studies informed the co-design process launched in WP5, where participatory workshops with Sámi, Ladin, and Jewish communities guided the development of the DIGICHer integrated framework for ethical digitisation. Concurrently, DIGICHer advanced the creation of data tools and interfaces, including a web-based search platform and a topic mining system for analysing CH research trends. This interdisciplinary process is laying the groundwork for the real-world testing and validation of the framework through pilot deployments, which will begin in the next phase of the project.
These efforts not only demonstrate the feasibility of a co-created, community-led approach to CH digitisation but also provide the technical and methodological basis for policy recommendations and monitoring tools to be developed under WP6. The work carried out so far confirms capacity of DIGICHer to transform the digitisation of CH into a more participatory, inclusive, and sustainable practice across Europe
Key work included a comparative mapping of digitisation practices and stakeholder roles (WP1), a legal and policy analysis of minority rights in digital heritage contexts (WP2), a multi-criteria evaluation of socio-economic and educational factors shaping inclusive CH practices (WP3), and the creation of an initial technical infrastructure for data-driven decision support (WP4). These foundational studies informed the co-design process launched in WP5, where participatory workshops with Sámi, Ladin, and Jewish communities guided the development of the DIGICHer integrated framework for ethical digitisation. Concurrently, DIGICHer advanced the creation of data tools and interfaces, including a web-based search platform and a topic mining system for analysing CH research trends. This interdisciplinary process is laying the groundwork for the real-world testing and validation of the framework through pilot deployments, which will begin in the next phase of the project.
These efforts not only demonstrate the feasibility of a co-created, community-led approach to CH digitisation but also provide the technical and methodological basis for policy recommendations and monitoring tools to be developed under WP6. The work carried out so far confirms capacity of DIGICHer to transform the digitisation of CH into a more participatory, inclusive, and sustainable practice across Europe
By M15, DIGICHer has achieved several interdisciplinary advancements that collectively redefine how CH digitisation can be made inclusive, ethical, and community-driven. The project has submitted 13 deliverables on time and initiated pilot activities with minority communities to test its integrated framework for CH digitisation. In parallel, 1 peer-reviewed scientific article has been published, and 8 additional manuscripts have been submitted, covering legal, socio-economic, technical, and participatory dimensions of CH digitisation. The project has developed and tested a prototype decision-support system built on a harmonised database of over 250,000 records of CH projects, institutions, and publications. This system leverages topic mining, named entity recognition (NER), and trend analysis to surface gaps, stakeholder roles, and emerging priorities.
Beyond scientific and technical outputs, DIGICHer is establishing best practices for inclusive design, co-creation, and stakeholder engagement. Two co-design workshops with minority communities gathered critical insights into values and concerns, which are directly shaping the framework and the pilot strategies. To ensure broad visibility DIGICHer has executed multilingual communication. This includes the cohesive visual identity, a project website in five languages, and a strong digital presence across LinkedIn, Facebook, and partner platforms. Over 70 communication items have been shared, generating over 30,000 impressions. DIGICHer has been presented at 11 international events and supported outreach activities for WP1-WP3 through QR-based campaigns and tailored calls to action
Beyond scientific and technical outputs, DIGICHer is establishing best practices for inclusive design, co-creation, and stakeholder engagement. Two co-design workshops with minority communities gathered critical insights into values and concerns, which are directly shaping the framework and the pilot strategies. To ensure broad visibility DIGICHer has executed multilingual communication. This includes the cohesive visual identity, a project website in five languages, and a strong digital presence across LinkedIn, Facebook, and partner platforms. Over 70 communication items have been shared, generating over 30,000 impressions. DIGICHer has been presented at 11 international events and supported outreach activities for WP1-WP3 through QR-based campaigns and tailored calls to action