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Research and innovation

Cultural heritage and Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs)

Research facilitated by the Commission in this area, funding, success stories, related policy briefs and related projects. 

Build our future from our past

Research and innovation for green, digital and innovative European cultural heritage

Cultural heritage and the cultural and creative industries (CCIs) are major drivers of growth and social development in Europe, while their innovation potential can increase Europe’s competitiveness.

Europe’s rich cultural heritage, with its common values, its wealth of monuments and sites and its creative diversity of traditions, crafts, arts, architecture, literature, languages, theatre, films and music, not only reflects our past but also shapes our present and builds our future.

It cultivates creativity, independent thinking and dialogue, while promoting our values across the world.

Safeguarding and valorising our cultural heritage, using new and innovative approaches in cooperation with creative stakeholders, is a key European policy priority that needs solid research to produce evidence for future policy making.

The resilience, cohesion and innovative potential of European societies are strongly linked to our cultural heritage, the arts and the cultural and creative industries.

Engagement with our cultural and artistic assets contributes to social cohesion and inclusion, by building collective representations of the past, present realities and expectations about the future.

Cultural heritage funding in Horizon Europe

Cultural heritage is an important and strategic area of European research and innovation.

Research and innovation supports European policies for cultural and creative industries that contribute decisively to Europe’s future prosperity, wellbeing, social and cultural cohesion as well as environmental sustainability.

We need to build our future from the past through a green, digital and innovative European Cultural Heritage.

Presentation23 June 2021
Cultural Heritage - Building our future from our past

Driving a green, digital & innovative European cultural heritage : building our future from the past.

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Activities under Horizon Europe

Cultural heritage has a specific intervention area in Cluster 2 - Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society of Horizon Europe, the current research and innovation programme. This cluster has a budget of €2.28 billion.

Cluster 2 actions support green and digital European cultural heritage and foster innovation and creativity in the sector of arts, the cultural and creative industries and the new European Bauhaus initiative.

Particularly, research and innovation for a greener cultural heritage focuses on sustainable materials and methods to improve the conservation, protection and restoration of tangible heritage, including monuments and artefacts. 

At the same time, other activities will develop new or exploit further existing digital and cutting-edge technologies that will increase the online access of cultural resources and boost innovation in architecture, filmmaking, music, gaming and cultural tourism, protect cultural goods from illicit trade and preserve endangered languages.

The supported activities will provide innovative solutions for making the EU a world leader in conservation technologies, management, digitisation and curation of digital heritage assets, and innovative approaches will increase access to, understanding and engagement with cultural heritage and the arts.

Research and innovation actions will also aim to support the establishment of a Cultural Heritage Cloud, a unique infrastructure for transdisciplinary collaboration among specialists, with cutting-edge technologies for digitizing artefacts, researching artworks, and documenting data .The actions will develop interactive tools for research, curation, restoration and preservation and for reaching out to citizens and cultural and creative industries.

Learn more about the Cultural Heritage Cloud

Funding under Horizon 2020

Under the previous research and innovation programme, Horizon 2020, more than €600 million was invested in research and innovation actions to

  • develop tools and methodologies for preserving tangible and intangible cultural heritage
  • protect endangered heritage from illicit trafficking
  • foster access to Cultural Heritage and promoting cultural tourism

Publications

General publications16 October 2023
Driving a green, digital & innovative European cultural heritage

This booklet gathers short descriptions of the projects selected for funding under the Horizon Europe Cluster 2 calls under the Destination ‘Innovative Research on European Cultural Heritage and Cultural and Creative Industries – Building Our Future From the Past’.

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CORDIS pack on digital Cultural Heritage

Heritage at Risk: EU research and innovation for a more resilient cultural heritage 
CORDIS Results Pack | Report

Innovative solutions for cultural heritage

Innovation in cultural heritage research

AMASS project publication: Comparative policy analysis and evaluation of artistic projects

 

Project success stories

Articles on EU-funded projects with particularly successful results.  

More success stories in cultural heritage

Latest

Events