Guide to Digital Transformation in Cultural Heritage

From the autumn of 2021, Culture24 and Europeana Initiative’s Digital Transformation Task Force began investigating the challenges facing the cultural heritage sector in its digital transformation.  

The goal of the Task Force was to collectively understand the challenges of the cultural heritage sector and to collaborate together to map out a clear, practical plan of action for the digital transformation of the sector.  

The Task Force pulled together two representatives from each of three pillars of the Europeana Initiative – the Europeana Network Association, the Europeana Aggregators’ Forum and the Europeana Foundation, alongside two independent representatives.  

The process involved 44 workshop participants from 19 countries who, across three open workshops, together mapped 800 considerations around digital activities and digital skills.

The approach the Guide recommends is values-led, guided by a commitment to be purposeful, inclusive and ethical so that we can address wider societal issues such as social justice, equity and the climate crisis. It is also centred on people’s needs and written in a way that can be responsive to the many different contexts across our sector 

The guide is written for the people who work in, around and for the many different museums, galleries, archives, libraries, heritage sites, arts organisations etc. that hold and protect cultural collections and seek to engage audiences with them.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution for digital transformation and it will only happen in response to various individual and organisational contexts, be it size, location, domain, purpose, audience etc. In response, the guide sets out three recommendations to help frame an approach to digital transformation for the whole of the culture sector in Europe:

• Language and approach: share a common language and approach to all aspects of digital transformation
• Mindset and culture: adopt a mindset and culture that is open to learning and collaboration
• Purpose and values: ensure that digital is purposeful and values-driven

Since publication the Guide and its approach are embedded through all our digital learning programmes, workshops and consultancies.  It has been embedded into our strategic work with policy makers and funders, in particular The Digital Culture Compass produced by ACE & NHLF as a free digital maturity toolkit   

Its approach provides a foundation to our Let’s Get Real action research programmes and the different cohorts of practitioners we work with.  

It has also been shared internationally in consultancy work:  

• Creative Australia’s Digital Specialist-in-Residence programme 
• Sector conferences in Sweden, New Zealand, UK, USA and Canada  
• Digital consultancy and skills training across the UK