The European Commission and Europeana Foundation published the Common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage – Strategy 2025-2030.
This strategic document is the result of extensive consultations conducted throughout 2024 and 2025. It was developed in collaboration with the Common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage Expert Group (CEDCHE) and its advisory subgroup, as well as with contributions from the wider Europeana ecosystem.
The Strategy sets out a shared, long-term vision for how the common European data space for cultural heritage should evolve, be governed and create impact. It positions the data space within broader EU priorities on data, artificial intelligence and digital transformation, ensuring coherence with related policy developments.
At its core, the Strategy targets a trusted, interoperable and inclusive data space. Its ambition is to widen access to Europe’s cultural heritage data, enable its reuse to support innovation and value creation, and respond to the fast-changing landscape of digital technologies and user expectations.
To achieve this, the Strategy highlights the need to diversify available data, make effective use of emerging technologies, strengthen governance arrangements and ensure that cultural heritage institutions remain in control of how their data is accessed and reused.
Strategic priorities
Major opportunities with potential to shape the next phase of the data space were identified by the contributors. These include:
- New applications and use cases may generate greater economic value
- The potential of new technologies such as AI, 3D and extended reality
- The data space as the point of reference for cultural heritage data through synergies and interoperability
- The community as multipliers and agents of transformation
There is also potential to develop new cross-sector use cases.
However, significant challenges remain, including the need to address:
- Capacity building
- Low institutional prioritisation of digital transformation
- Persistent funding gaps
- Silos delaying reuse and collaboration
The Strategy 2025-2030 is structured around three strategic priorities:
- The first focuses on establishing a more robust and interoperable infrastructure to accommodate a wider variety of high-quality datasets, while expanding governance mechanisms and ensuring alignment with evolving standards.
- The second priority targets greater access and reuse, emphasising easy multilingual discovery tools, new partnerships beyond the cultural heritage sector, and mechanisms to stimulate demand-driven innovation.
- The third priority concerns digital transformation within the sector, aiming to accelerate the use of AI, XR and advanced digitisation.
Each of the three priorities is reinforced by cross-cutting themes, such as AI, 3D and extended reality, and multilingualism, reflecting their centrality to the data space’s evolution.
Contributing to the AI Continent ecosystem
The Strategy draws the vision and priorities for the data space towards 2030 by putting it into the policy context of the AI Continent Action Plan and Europe as a competitive human-centric artificial intelligence leader.
Additionally, it aims to contribute to the Quality Data for AI initiative for trustworthy and reusable data announced in the Data Union Strategy, and the common European data space for cultural heritage as one of the 20 flagship actions of the Culture Compass.
Furthermore, the Strategy seeks to help Member States meet the targets of the Recommendation on a common European data space for cultural heritage, capitalising on the work done over the past two decades in the context of the Europeana initiative.
This includes aiming to:
- Multiply data and sharing mechanisms
- Boost control over data
- Increase the reuse and diversification of audiences and markets
- Empower professionals and the community
- Support the digital transformation by strengthening national capacity building
Read the full Common European data space for cultural heritage - Strategy 2025-2030.