inDICEs – Measuring the Impact of Cultural Heritage
inDICEs ran from 2020-2023 and received funding under the Horizon 2020 programme to enable the advancement of the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCI) in Europe. inDICEs developed a framework to measure the socioeconomic impact of digital culture that enables CCIs to navigate the landscape of legal policies and regulations in order to galvanise creative production and cultural participation.
The project was conceived to help researchers and policy-makers fully understand the crucial role that the cultural heritage sector can play in the digitisation process of the cultural and creative ecosystem in Europe. It also aimed to empower policy-makers and decision-makers in the CCI to fully understand the social and economic impact of digitisation in their sectors and address the need for innovative (re)use of cultural assets.
The inDICEs project brought together internationally renowned research groups in the domains of Cultural Economics, IP Law and Digital Humanities, representatives from the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCI) with substantial outreach capacity, social innovators and platform developers. The partners included ICCU (IT), Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (BE), Centrum Cyfrowe (PL), Fondazione Bruno Kessler (IT), Platoniq LAB (ES), Deutscher Museumsbund/NEMO - the Network of European Museum Organisations (DE), European Fashion Heritage Association (IT), Europeana Foundation (NL), University Center City of Prato (IT), Michael Culture Association (FR), Capital High Tech / Absiskey (FR), Sound & Vision (NL), Cluj Cultural Centre (RO) and WebLyzard Technology (AT).
Outcomes of inDICEs
Although the inDICEs project has come to an end, all its outcomes remain open access for all interested parties. The inDICEs Open Observatory offers several participatory activities to learn about digital transformation and forge collaborations with cultural heritage professionals across Europe.
In the Conversation series, inDICEs engaged in conversations with remarkable professionals around Europe to talk about the future and sustainability of open access to cultural heritage assets. Discussions touched upon the needs and concerns in relation to digitization, online access, use and re-use of collections, data needed for developing digital strategies, future research competencies and change management.
inDICEs also published a number of deliverables including reports, guidelines and toolkits. Below we have highlight some of the digital toolkits that are available on the Open Observatory.
Trainings
To transmit the knowledge gathered through research, inDICEs developed the free MOOC training Developing Digital Transition Strategies for Cultural Heritage Institutions that allowed professionals in cultural heritage institutions, policymakers and critical culture consumers to expand their knowledge on the multiple facets of digital transformation and digital strategies.
Participants also got to learn how to employ methods and tools to assess and galvanize Cultural Heritage Institution’s potential in the digital era. The MOOC is composed of six modules consisting of videos, texts, exercises, quizzes and readings dealing with subjects such as participatory strategies, Intellectual Property Rights, capacity building and impact assessment. NEMO's contribution shed light on museums and digitalization in terms of copyrights and fields of action.
In the course of the inDICEs project, NEMO invited its members and the museum community to the online workshop Monitoring & Self-Assessing the Digital Performance in Museums. On 5, 12 and 19 November 2021, 18 participants from 14 countries, including a few guest participants from outside the Council of Europe, met to learn about digital performance in museums. The participants gained new insights into designing a digital strategy, the goal of digitization efforts, selection criteria for digital collections as well as assessing digital capacity and performance.
The hybrid event COMMUNITY & DIGITISATION – the new drivers of cultural heritage wrapped up the inDICEs project on 2 March 2023 in Rome, Italy. 300 participants from all over Europe and beyond joined to look back at a successful project and discuss critical analysis of existing policies on facilitating access and reuse of digital cultural resources and permeating different types of cultural consumption.
Got a question about inDICEs? Get in touch via info[@]indices-culture.eu