Creative re-use of digital cultural content and private-public-partnerships

Promoter participated to LuBeC 2013 with a presentation (PDF, italian language) of dr. Antonella Fresa about the creative re-use of digital cultural content and best practice for private-public-partnerships.

The presentation starts from the consideration that the amount of Digital Cultural Heritage is very large and constantly growing, thanks to the digitization programmes that both private and public content holders are carrying on since the last 10 years. The return on investment should be assessed against the impact delivered to society both in terms of the use of digital cultural heritage content and services by researchers, teachers, students and more in general the European citizens, and in terms of its use by the economic actors, most particularly the creative industries.

Creative industries includes a  wide range of businesses, from multi-national corporations to small and micro-business. They are a complex sector: although 80% are small and micro enterprises, the total business share of the SMEs is only 18%; while the 1% of large-scale enterprises generates 40% of the annual sector turnover. However, the comprehension and the engagement with creative industries is a key factor since they represent a fundamental ring in the development of the “Cultural Heritage–Technology– Reuse” value chain.

Still, a number of barriers exists that makes difficult to unlock in full the potential that can derive from the re-use of digital cultural heritage, among which: lack of clear licensing of digital public domain works, lack of good discovery mechanisms, lack of awareness amongst cultural institutions about the value of their digital assets.

Increasing the exploitation of the digital cultural content available is therefore possible only by engaging into a close and factual dialogue content holders, creative enterprises and end users with the final aim to create and support new products and to eventually boost opportunities for employment and economic growth.

The speech of Dr. Fresa introduced two best practice projects that see the partnership of Promoter in the role of Technical Coordinator. The two projects are Europeana Photography and Europeana Space (under negotiation expected to start at the beginning of 2014). They are supported by the European Commission in the frame of the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme to contribute to the development of Europeana, the European digital library.

The presentation of Promoter was scheduled in the second session of Focus Employment that took place on the 18^th October, h. 9.30-13.00, featuring discussion on the theme “Cultural heritage and ICT: digital interactivity for the cultural attractors”.

Download the presentation in PDF here