Both the European cultural heritage and the scholarly disciplines devoted to its analysis, the humanities, are in danger of being left behind by the information revolution. So far it has not been possible to ensure that the documents representing this heritage and the tools for its study are adequately available in the Internet. ECHO aims at changing this situation by implementing and evaluating a model that unifies partners from all relevant areas, integrating scholarly with IT competence. The AGORA model presupposes a network in which the partners work within an interoperable framework, share their resources, exchange and combine their tools. The 14 partners in ECHO will not only provide an overview of the present situation but also implement a small-scale AGORA, showing its benefits in five case studies. A management structure for the AGORA is set up that will be evaluated during the lifetime of this 18 months project.