This funding comes from the European Commission's Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) programme. In total, nearly €30 million in funding has been awarded to Digital Service Infrastructures delivering networked cross-border services for citizens, businesses and public administrations in the telecommunications sector. Europeana is one of these DSIs.
The successful Europeana projects are:
- Europeana Common Culture, coordinated by the Europeana Foundation
- Judaica Europeana 2.0, coordinated by the Jewish Historical Museum
- Europeana Archaeology, coordinated by Vilnius University
- Linking Biodiversity and Culture Information - LinBi, coordinated by Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg
These projects deliver new and improved content to Europeana Collections, allowing for better access to and reuse of new types of data through Europeana.
Europeana Common Culture will improve the contents of Europeana’s national aggregators. Judaica Europeana 2.0 will deliver new and updated content on Jewish cultural heritage. Europeana Archaeology will improve access to archaeological heritage. And LinBi will do the same for biological and natural historical heritage.
Participants in these projects are in 23 EU countries, plus Serbia. The projects will begin in early 2019. The Europeana Foundation will coordinate the collaboration and integration of these projects’ outcomes in the Europeana Core Service, when and if necessary.
Europeana Foundation Executive Direction Harry Verwayen says, 'The Connecting Europe Facility programme allows for project funding to supplement and innovate aspects of the Core Service of Europeana. It is really critical that these projects complement what we are already doing and are in sync with the overall strategy. I am therefore very excited that these four projects have been selected as each of them has great potential to achieve these aims.'
Last May, eight other proposals were awarded CEF funding, taking the total of current Europeana CEF-funded projects to 15, three of which will end in February 2019.