Conference Agenda

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.

In recent decades, our collective memory has been digitised by institutions, citizens, and associations. This digitisation is considered key to transforming cultural heritage into new knowledge resources. Once the digital heritage is made visible and searchable, culture truly becomes usable. Large sets of data, which are compatible and open for new services and knowledge sharing, are also enabling the creation of new businesses that are already highlighting the added value inherent in digital cultural heritage.

For this reason, the European Union lists digitisation of cultural heritage among its priorities in the field. The Commission’s new strategic framework “Culture Compass” (2025) introduces a dual mandate for the cultural sector: fostering “Europe for Culture” through social cohesion and “Culture for Europe” through economic competitiveness. This strategic vision is technically manifested in a new digital ecosystem for cultural heritage comprised of three infrastructures forming a nexus for digital cultural heritage: the European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage (ECCCH), the Common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage, and the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC).

While the EOSC pushes for open science and data re-use in other sectors, Data Space for Cultural Heritage is a form designed to support multi-layered ecosystems, in which data sovereignty is one of the key concepts, as opposed to platformisation, where all data is concentrated and held in the hands of private companies whose interest is to exploit data for commercial purposes. Additionally, the ECCCH imposes a cloud-based architecture as the primary means for institutional cooperation.

This paper argues that while these infrastructures aim for technical interoperability, they represent a significant governance challenge regarding the balance between “open science” and “data sovereignty”. By examining the power dynamics of digital ownership, I pose a critical question: Who owns the data in this emerging ecosystem for digital cultural heritage, and how are cultural heritage institutions being reshaped by these infrastructures?

To address this, the research employs a theoretical framework combining media archaeology and mediatisation theory. Rather than viewing these infrastructures as neutral, a media archaeological lens allows us to “excavate” the governance blueprints and technical standards of the nexus. I argue that the push for AI-readability and high-volume data exchange in the Data Space embeds a “technological logic” that favours standardised, economically viable data over non-standardised cultural resources. Furthermore, through the lens of mediatisation, I analyse how heritage institutions are forced to adapt their behaviours to the “platform logic” of the European clouds.

Finally, this paper demonstrates how policy-driven technological choices dictate the future of cultural memory, determining whether heritage institutions remain guardians of a “public good” or become providers for a commercialised data market.

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 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, new initiatives such as the CEDCHE and the EU funded ECHOES/ECCCH 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 established an International Liaison Agency to assist consortium members by coordinating, incentivising and monitoring international collaborative activities, identifying gaps to help the community navigate the increasingly complex landscape. To operationalise this vision, quarterly landscape reports will summarise European trends for the community, identify emerging standards and flag new grant proposals and events, complementing the existing information ticker and weekly reports with a specific international – European focus. The task aims to synchronise efforts, and incentivise and encourage international engagement, with the International Liaison Agency acting as a central coordination hub.

In sum, this approach will transform the myriad of fragmented partners into a navigable network, fostering sustainable cross-border collaboration and strengthening NFDI4Cultures’s digital research infrastructure for cultural heritage across Europe.