Europeana 2021
As the cultural heritage sector looks to recover, rebuild and grow in post-pandemic times, Europeana 2021 - taking place from 10 -12 November - will aim to raise voices from across the sector to empower digital transformation and explore the role digital cultural heritage plays in today and tomorrow’s world. Building on the success of last year’s virtual conference, we are excited to be creating another designed-for-digital event to inspire and inform you.
Almost 1000 professionals from around the globe attended Europeana 2020, and we are looking forward to welcoming an exciting mix of cultural heritage practitioners to this year’s event again. Whether you work in and around tech, copyright, education, research, impact, communications and more in the cultural heritage sector, there will be something for you! We welcome both those new to the sector and a regular at Europeana events to join us and connect with an engaged and innovative audience.
Call for proposals
We want to open up our platform to new - as well as familiar - voices and topics and give the stage to exciting formats. Therefore we are inviting you to submit your proposals for an interactive and engaging webinar, workshop, session or intervention to be held during Europeana 2021. We’re looking for proposals that cover the following themes:
Diversity & Inclusion: Cultural heritage empowers society to embrace its diversity and flourish. We are looking for proposals related to any aspect of diversity and inclusion. This could be around access, reinterpreting or reimagining practices and discourses, or looking at the ways people work and operate individually, within our organisations and as a sector. We are interested in how we can collectively ensure our communities are equitable and everyone feels safe, welcome, represented and equal.
Participation: Participation in and engagement with culture creates value in our sector and society at large. We want everyone to have the opportunity to participate in digital cultural heritage - to access it, to share it, to enjoy it, contribute to it and be enriched by it. We are looking for proposals that help engender participation. This could be by supporting others to develop opportunities to participate and integrate participatory activities into products and services. We’re looking for proposals that cover participatory practices, standards, platforms, tools and more.
Collaboration: Collaboration is vital in addressing the cultural heritage sector’s vulnerabilities and challenges. Greater collaborative practices can progress our sector’s digital transformation, which in turn can enable further collaborative opportunities. We’re looking for proposals that support collaborations for a European cultural sector which places digital cultural heritage at the heart of society. We’d love to hear from you if you have imaginative, engaging or new ways to connect people or organisations, build partnerships, engage audiences and network from within or even outside the sector.
Digital Public Sphere and Data Spaces: The Europeana Initiative is positioned at the heart of a data space for cultural heritage in the new plans of the European Commission. We want that space to be part of a vibrant digital public sphere where everyone can interact with trustworthy, reliable information and enjoy discussions and interactions which are respectful and free of harassment and exploitation. This idea is very closely linked to the foundations on which Europeana is built and the values we hold. And it’s also closely linked to the European Commission’s New European Bauhaus movement which aims to shape future ways of living that answer the wider challenges we face today. Digital cultural heritage can play an important role in this initiative, and in shaping the heritage of tomorrow. We’re looking for proposals in this area to share and showcase how the digital transformation of our sector contributes to such a thriving public digital space, to sustainability, accessibility, and inclusivity, and to help ensure that culture is always represented in discussions on the development of policies and programmes linked to digital public spaces.
Climate Action: There is a global climate emergency and digital has a carbon footprint too. We’re looking for proposals that support and contribute to the European Green Deal and New European Bauhaus, creating a greener, more sustainable society. We want to hear about innovative and new ways we can work together to tackle and raise awareness of the climate emergency. The proposals could cover individual actions we can all take to ‘green-up’ our practices, or activities that organisations can carry out to proactively make a positive difference. If it covers how we can individually and collectively reduce the impact the digital cultural heritage sector has on climate change, we want to hear from you!
Apply now
To submit your application please read the detailed information on our call for proposals page and then complete our form. The deadline for proposals has been extended to 12 September 2021.
We can’t wait to read your proposal!
This Pro news post was edited on 19/08/21 to reflect the extension of the call for proposals deadline from 22 August 2021 to 12 September 2021.