“Citizen Science Practices in Cultural Heritage: towards a Sustainable Model in
Higher Education” is a 3-year Erasmus+ KA2 project starting in October 2020.
Convincing exemplary projects have demonstrated how citizen engagement appeals and digital participation are essential in crisis situations such as climate change and pandemics. Yet the potential nor the scope of community involvement in scientific research haven’t been fully explored so far. CitizenHeritage takes the citizen science approach to the world of cultural heritage, where the digital realm creates new opportunities to reach out to broader audiences and facilitate community building. The project encourages citizen science in cultural heritage through the application of crowdsourcing and co-creation tools to some of Europe’s largest open digital collections. It contributes to the notion of European citizenship by enabling stakeholder communities to jointly take responsibility for their heritage, advocating an open approach to otherness and a European community spirit surmounting regional and national differences.
Key outcomes
The project will produce the following outcomes:
1. Review of practices of Higher Education engagement in citizen enhanced open science in the area of cultural heritage
2. Production of a methodology, user requirements and guidelines for Cultural Heritage Institutions and universities
3. Development and testing of participatory approaches
4. Dissemination and creation of educational and promotional materials
5. Drawing lessons from the use of digital technologies in crowd science in cultural heritage and education
6. Assessment of the economic and social sustainability of citizen enhanced open heritage projects
Project partners
- Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (BE), coordinator
- National Technical University Of Athens (GR)
- Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam (NL)
- European Fashion Heritage Association (IT)
- Web2learn (GR)
- Photoconsortium (IT)
Funding
European Commission, Erasmus+ KA2 partnerships, Belgian National Agency (BE02 EPOS vzw)
EC Project Number 2020-1-BE02-KA203-074727
