The evaluation of digital projects in cultural heritage institutions remains largely dominated by quantitative digitisation metrics, such as volume, access, and reuse. While these indicators are useful for monitoring production and visibility, they provide limited insight into the actual impact of digital heritage data on institutional practices, user behaviour, and long-term value creation. As Libraries, Archives, and Museums (LAMs) transition toward a participatory "Culture 3.0" paradigm, there is a clear need to shift from output-oriented assessment toward impact-oriented evaluation frameworks.

Starting from the Open Data Watch data value chain and its possible application to the cultural heritage sector, this paper focuses on the “change” stage: the critical juncture positioned between data use and reuse. This stage foregrounds tangible behavioural, organisational, and institutional transformations resulting from data utilisation. Despite its importance for demonstrating public value, the "change" stage remains conceptually underdeveloped and rarely operationalised in heritage evaluation practices.

By analysing emerging European IA frameworks, such as the Europeana Impact Framework, SoPHIA model (Social Platform for Holistic Heritage Impact Assessment), and inDICEs (Measuring the Impact of Digital Culture), this paper examines why existing methodologies struggle to capture these deeper transformations. We argue that the lack of focus on the "change" stage hinders the ability of institutions to evidence their role in building "infrastructures of engagement." This gap directly affects the accountability, resilience, and sustainability of heritage organisations in increasingly mediated digital environments.

The paper suggests that for digital humanities research to be truly "with and for society," evaluation must move beyond "digitisation for the sake of digitisation." We propose a roadmap for integrating qualitative indicators of change into institutional workflows. By capturing how digital heritage alters professional practices and community engagement, the cultural sector can better align its digital strategies with broader societal goals. In conclusion, the paper provides a theoretical and practical framework for evidencing the transformative power of digital heritage, ensuring that the transition from data to impact is both measurable and meaningful.

Driven by digital transformation and the ICOM 2022 definition (ICOM, 2022), museums are evolving from passive repositories into active agents of public engagement and co-creation, fostering education, social inclusion, and community resilience. This transformation reconceptualizes cultural objects as Buckland’s information-as-thing (Latham, 2012) – viewing artifacts as dynamic data sources whose value is activated through use – necessitating metrics for societal relevance and public value.

While impact assessment has matured beyond 1980s economic metrics (Bollo, 2013) to encompass social, participatory and sustainability dimensions (Hawkes, 2001; Kelly, 2006; Matarasso, 1997), traditional quantitative approaches remain insufficient to capture value in a ‘post-digital’ context. By frequently overlooking data curation quality, algorithmic ethics, and co-created knowledge, current approaches hinder demonstrating how digital humanities (DH) infrastructures foster engagement required for healthy democratic societies (European Commission, 2021, 2023; EGE, 2023; Tartari et al., 2023).

Aligned with the DARIAH agenda to foster socially responsive scholarship and strengthen connectivity between memory institutions and society through a public and participatory lens, this study demonstrates how integrating Digital Curation (DC) and DH creates infrastructure to map and evaluate public value of museum initiatives. Grounded in a qualitative, interpretivist comparative analysis of six international instruments (Europeana, SoPHIA, ISO 16687:2025, MOI!, inDICEs, CSIRO), the research identifies a disconnect between curatorial rigor and impact metrics, obscuring how digital infrastructures sustain civic engagement and social cohesion.

The proposed framework operationalizes a hybrid synergy, positioning DC as an innovation driver (Poole, 2017). Informed by lifecycle models like d-KISTI (Rhee, 2024), it integrates metrics for data quality (FAIR) and digital preservation (Higgins, 2018) to manage “information-as-thing” via the “collections as data” paradigm (Padilla, 2018) for maximum impact. Complementarily, DH acts as the analytical and participatory vector. It transforms curated data into value through methodologies like crowdsourcing to measure participatory outcomes (Liew & Cheetham, 2016; Marras et al., 2023). By fostering the ‘online sociability’ required for collaborative heritage construction (Liew, 2015), it enables new forms of learning through conversation with the public.

This synthesis leads to the Impact Assessment Model with Digital Curation and Digital Humanities (IAM-CDH). Integrating five core dimensions and 45 indicators, the framework operationalizes metrics to evidence curatorial rigor, public value and research impact by: assessing Digital and Informational Ecosystem governance (FAIR, AI bias mitigation); quantifying Participation and Co-Creation (citizen science, co-created outputs); measuring Sociocultural and Educational Impact (digital literacy, social inclusion, educational use of curated data); evaluating Culture as a Sustainability Pillar; demonstrating Innovation and Interdisciplinary Collaboration (open data reuse, cross-sector partnerships).

Linking the technical rigor of DC with the interpretive power of DH, the IAM-CDH provides an evidence infrastructure for impact demonstration. It aims to support memory institutions in accountability and strategic planning, moving beyond reach metrics to address core questions of cultural heritage, shared memory and societal justice while highlighting the potential for ethical, sustainable change generated by digital strategies in contemporary museums. Currently a conceptual framework, future work focuses on empirical validation in diverse memory institutions to assess contextual applicability and practical feasibility, alongside developing simplified tools for agile data collection.

Infrastructures not only offer a reliable, stable base and provide tools and services for fast evolving digital research, but can also serve as a contact and information point for navigating the myriad of partners and policy shifts, also at an international level.

Since its launch in October 2020, NFDI4Culture (https://nfdi4culture.de/) – the Consortium for Research Data on Material and Immaterial Cultural Heritage – has established itself as a reliable infrastructure bridging cultural disciplines, such as art history, architecture, musicology, theatre, dance, film and media studies, in Germany. NFDI4Culture represents a bottom up, coordinated effort to systematically manage, integrate and preserve research data across its communities. It is part of the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) and one of twenty six subject specific consortia, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

NFDI4Culture focuses on the needs of the cultural heritage community. With its vision – Shared Data, Shared Practice, Shared Knowledge – it has built a wide ranging network bringing together eleven applying partners as well as over a hundred partners from academia, museums, libraries, archives, the creative industries and public institutions.

So far events, a Culture Kickstarter grant‑support scheme, a highly frequented Helpdesk (including legal expertise) and Flex‑Funds for software development provided by project members have proved successful formats for community engagement. External communication is supported by an open chat platform with an information ticker and a weekly report of upcoming events, news posts, a newsletter and social media presence, although international developments have so far been addressed only peripherally.

Whilst the first project phase focused on a national infrastructure, this second phase, launched in October 2025, has made international cooperation one of three major strategic priorities, next to quality assurance and artificial intelligence (AI). NFDI4Culture will, therefore, prioritise international knowledge and technology exchange, close collaboration with research infrastructures abroad as well as active contributions to open GLAM-platforms.

Alongside DARIAH-EU, initiatives such as the DS4CH (Data Space for Cultural Heritage) and the EU-funded ECHOES are aiming to create a European Cultural Heritage Cloud. International collaborations are growing, new funding opportunities are emerging, and many community members feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of partners and developments. As a result, NFDI4Culture has created an International Liaison Agency to support consortium members by coordinating, incentivising and monitoring international collaborations and by pinpointing gaps that help the community navigate an increasingly complex landscape. To put this vision into practice, quarterly landscape reports will supplement the existing information ticker and weekly reports with a European focused overview of trends, standards, grants and events. The paper will touch upon further incentives as well as challenges, and will address the underlying question of how the success of a digital infrastructure’s international engagement can be systematically diagnosed, quantified and monitored, and will present a draft conceptual framework designed for NFDI4Culture to guide that assessment.

In sum, this approach aims to turn a fragmented set of partners into a coherent, navigable network, fostering sustainable cross border collaboration and strengthening NFDI4Culture’s digital research infrastructure for cultural heritage across Europe.

The BatoLabo project was born at the confluence of several initiatives carried out in the Loire region in recent years: work on a Loire Parliament, efforts to recognise nautical knowledge in the Loire as French intangible cultural heritage, and collective initiatives such as the “Grande Remontée” of the Loire river. These experiences are part of a broader context of knowledge circulation and co-production, mobilising forms of interdisciplinarity rooted in territories and practices (Darbellay; Barjot; Riaux et al.).

The team behind BatoLabo is engaged in these dynamics, which question the place of rivers in our societies, the way they are inhabited and governed, and the ways in which their voices can be heard. This approach is part of a re-examination of the modern separation between nature and culture and a focus on humans and non-humans (Descola; Latour), as it is now extended by work in human ecology and environmental humanities (Miranda Pires & Bruckmeier).

Within this framework, BatoLabo explores how itinerant research and creative practices can become concrete supports for collective reflection on river governance and health. The project adopts a resolutely interdisciplinary approach, combining social sciences, environmental sciences and artistic practices, in line with critical analyses of interdisciplinarity applied to socio-ecological issues (Jacobs & Frickel; Frodeman et al.; Ferreira & Pontes). In concrete terms, it takes the form of a long-distance voyage from the Loire to the Danube aboard a Loire barge (departing in September 2025).

Based on this experience, the project poses a central question: how can attachments to river environments, as gathered through surveys, contribute to the recognition of the rights of nature in Europe? This question is part of a rapidly developing field of research on the rights of nature and their legal, political and cultural implementation (David; Gilbert et al.). It takes on particular importance in the European context, marked by profound morphological transformations of watercourses and lasting degradation of their ecosystems (Linton; Petts; Tockner et al.; Vörösmarty et al.).

BatoLabo is thus in dialogue with programmes such as Bourges European Capital of Culture 2028, the International Rivers movement led by Camille de Toledo and the European Citizens' Initiative Right of Nature. The project positions itself as a field of observation and investigation into the effects, appropriations and resistance encountered by these legal and political proposals in the territories they cover, in relation to existing governance frameworks (Larrère; Ragueneau; Makowiak & Aragão).

BatoLabo's scientific project is based on scientific projects such as Fluvioscope (National Network of Social Sciences and Humanities Centres, Zones Ateliers Network) and is organised around three complementary axes: documenting attachments to river environments, observing modes of governance and analysing the ecological health of rivers. The ethnographic survey aims to document the reciprocal relationships between humans and non-humans, highlighting the emotions, conflicts and forms of care that structure relationships with waterways (Descola & Pálsson; Chew & Gross, n.d.). An environmental component, conducted with INRAE in Thonon-les-Bains, studies the composition of phytoplankton and the effects of developments on river health using environmental DNA samples.