The Cultural Heritage Cloud (ECCCH) is a European Union initiative to create a shared digital infrastructure that connects cultural heritage institutions and professionals across the EU. It will provide specific digital collaboration tools for the sector while removing barriers for smaller and more remote institutions.
The Cultural Heritage Cloud aims to add a digital dimension to cultural heritage preservation, conservation, restoration, and enhancement by providing cutting-edge technology for artefact digitisation and artwork research. The goal is to assist cultural heritage institutions and research organisations of all sizes, and both professionals and non-professionals, in managing their digital objects more effectively.
The Cultural Heritage Cloud will facilitate this through enhanced visibility, interconnectivity, and access to scientific resources, training, and advanced digital tools. These tools will help them navigate the challenges posed by the digital transition in the cultural heritage sector.
The Cultural Heritage Cloud is being developed by the European Cloud for Heritage OpEn Science (ECHOES), a project funded by the European Commission and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), bringing together fragmented communities in the Cultural Heritage field to form a new, unified community.
ECHOES is responsible for coordinating and integrating the outcomes from all projects funded under ECCCH-related calls, including MusicSphere. By adopting a holistic approach, ECHOES will establish a collaborative digital environment for all cultural heritage sector participants, fostering
knowledge creation across tangible and intangible heritage assets.
The digital environment created by ECHOES will enable digitising existing knowledge and collaboratively analysing cultural heritage assets, facts, and phenomena. In this context, actors – whether human or Artificial Intelligence – can develop interpretations that enrich the understanding of cultural heritage and its surrounding context.
A core objective is to develop ‘Digital Twins’ of heritage objects within the Cultural Heritage Cloud. These Digital Twins will integrate multidisciplinary information, enabling users to interact with, explore, and enhance cultural heritage objects in new ways, thus encouraging collaborative, scientifically-informed knowledge creation across the sector.
By 2028, ECHOES will deliver a unified platform integrating the outputs of both EU and national cultural heritage projects. To ensure the Cultural Heritage Cloud’s long-term sustainability, the project will also establish a dedicated legal entity to oversee its continuity and support the sector’s evolving digital needs.
For further information and to stay updated on the developments of the Cultural Heritage Cloud visit the dedicated website echoes-eccch.eu.