The 2024 Call for projects to contribute to the Cultural Heritage Cloud (ECCCH) resulted in ten projects being selected, the first six of these starting this month with the other four due to kick-off at the start of 2026.
Ancient Greek vase in Paestum Museum
The Call covered five topic areas, focussing on the development of innovative tools for a range of applications involving digitisation and analysis, data organisation and enrichment, visitor experiences and conservation. The selected applications cover industrial heritage, musical organs, archaeology and palaeontology, music, burials and colour. Digital twins, 3D, knowledge graphs and artificial intelligence feature in many of the projects with some providing high-level applications that can be used across many disciplines to others which are focussed on specific domains. Together with the other three ‘sister’ projects, the new applications will provide a rich and varied contribution to the Cultural Heritage Cloud.
The new projects are summarised according to the five Call themes:
01 – Innovative tools for digitisation and analysis of dynamic processes, objects and complex combined data
KINETIKA – Advancing the Digitization and Analysis of Dynamic Cultural Heritage Objects will create a 4D digital twin framework for Cultural Heritage (CH) objects with mechanical parts, focusing on movable structures of industrial heritage and cultural heritage masonry.
MusicSphere – A Multimodal Approach for Digitizing, Analyzing, and Simulating Traditional Musical Organs Through 3D Technologies, Acoustic Analysis and Interactive Experiences aims to develop tools that combine advanced technologies for preserving, studying, and providing access to the cultural heritage aspects of traditional musical organs. The project will focus on traditional wind instruments such as Pipe Organs and their ancient Greek counterpart such as ‘Hydraulis’.
02 – Innovative tools for documenting, interlinking and organising data
StratiGraph (Knowledge Graphs for Stratigraphy) aims to transform archaeological and paleontological documentation by developing innovative open collaborative tools that integrate advanced knowledge graphs, artificial intelligence, and 3D field documentation techniques.
ARXIVE – Advanced Research and eXploration for Interoperable Value in European Heritage introduces a semantic archival system that provides advanced solutions for annotating evolving digital twins, enabling cultural heritage professionals to create semantically rich, context-aware documentation while streamlining processes for research, preservation, and dissemination.
03 – Innovative tools for advanced data enrichment
INFINITY – Multidimensional knowledge-based annotation for ethical context-aware heritage data life cycles will build an ecosystem of tools and methods that enhance the lifecycle management of Cultural Heritage Digital Objects (CHDOs). It focuses on creating enriched, multi-context descriptions of CHDOs through multidimensional knowledge graphs.
ECHOLOT – European Cultural Heritage Optimised Linked Open Tools will make the creation, provision, and reuse of high-quality, semantically rich, and interoperable Cultural Heritage (CH) data accessible to scholars and institutions, significantly lowering the threshold for joining the collaborative cloud.
04 – Innovative tools for high-value interactions with visitors and heritage objects
UNICHE – Unified No-Code platform for Interactive Cultural Heritage Experiences will build a black-box platform for designing, producing and sharing high-quality, interactive, cultural heritage experiences.
PlaceMUS XR – Digital Journey across Musical Places in Europe and Extended Realities focuses on creating digital applications that enable users to explore significant “places of music” across European regions and cities with an interwoven narrative, encompassing the musical event itself, its cultural and historical context, the location, and physical museum objects.
05 – Innovative tools for the study, conservation and restoration of heritage objects
EXCALIBUR – Advanced toolkits for interdisciplinary and enhanced study, conservation, and restoration in burial excavations and findings will provide a holistic framework that offers innovative tools and methods for enhanced study, improved conservation and restoration works, and knowledge of cultural heritage objects, based on their digital twins, focussing on solutions that assist the study, conservation, and restoration of burial excavations, remains, and findings.
COLOURS – Collaborative On-cloud Lab for the conservation and digital restoration of ColOUred heritage collectionS aims to develop integrated colour analysis and restoration tools tailored to diverse artefacts, including polychrome sculptures, paintings, textiles, historic films and photographs.
