Work Packages

The core activities of the DC-NET project focus on integration and coordination of Cultural Ministries, their agencies, the programmes they own and manage and the e-Infrastructures community across Europe. This work will pave the way to a series of new initiatives in the creation of Virtual Research Communities active in the digital cultural heritage research, powered by access to e-Infrastructures.

As an ERA-NET coordination action, the main activity of the DC-NET project is to bring people together, to explore how e-Infrastructures can add value to the research in the cultural heritage sector and to pool programmes and resources to sustain the envisaged research and development.

The main expected outcome of the ERA-NET is the plan of joint activities and its initial implementation, through guidelines and dissemination actions.

The project consists of seven work-packages, which span the project lifecycle from the initial establishment of a community of common interest to the production of a joint activities plan endorsed by the relevant government ministries of each member state.

WP1, Network of Common Interest, will establish the network of cultural heritage ministries, agencies and research centres, and the working groups which focus on specific project areas.   Each participating country will nominate a National Referee who will carry out the coordination of the network at national level. The network of common interest is intended to be open to the participation of new countries. Mechanisms and instruments for the enlargment of the network will be put in place along the project life time.

Contact person for WP1: Maria Teresa Natale, Marzia Piccininno, ICCU

WP2, e-Infrastructure Awareness, explores the e-Infrastructures available in each member state, the policies, the programmes and regulations which govern access to the e-Infrastructures, and the mechanisms and technical standards that need to be complied with. This work-package will give the cultural heritage actors the knowledge they need about e-Infrastructures, at a level of detail sufficient to appreciate what can and cannot reasonably be achieved.

Contact persons for WP2: Jean Moulin, STIS; Indrek Ensaar, EVKM

WP3, New Service Priorities, is dedicated to combining the priorities of the cultural heritage sector with their new knowledge about e-Infrastructures. The work-package will review the priorities of the Cultural Ministries, in terms of the new services which they wish to deliver using the e-Infrastructures.

Contact persons for WP3: Christophe Dessaux, MCC; Borje Justrell, RA

WP4, Technical Validation, will investigate in detail how e-Infrastructures can be used to achieve the ambitions defined in WP3. Each ambition will be matched to available resources, services and e-Infrastructures in each member state. Each ambition will be validated in terms of feasibility, cost, perceived value to the cultural heritage sector, impact on e-Infrastructures and other users, international replication and collaboration potential and cost.

Contact persons for WP4: Stefanos Kollias, NTUA on behalf of HMC; Franc Zakrajsek, MKRS

WP5, Dissemination deals with the core aim of the project, that is to raise awareness of e-Infrastructures, their priorities and constraints, in the cultural heritage community, as well as vice versa. This will contribute to the establishment of a pool of researchers able to carry out the joint actions envisaged by the project. The activities planned in WP5 will bring the benefits of the new knowledge generated by DC-NET to a wider audience, including: cultural ministries from the EU and beyond, organisations involved digital cultural heritage research, experts and researchers in the areas of cultural heritage and of e-Infrastructures.

Contact persons for WP5: Jean Moulin, STIS; Ivan Ronai, OKM

WP6, Joint activities Having agreed a common set of priorities and validated these ambitions, the consortium will then work on the plan of the Joint Activities and will draw up its Joint Activities Plan for digital cultural heritage research using e-Infrastructures. Training Materials will be made available online. National training events will take place in each participant country. These events are aimed at the cultural heritage communities in each country, and will raise awareness of the capabilities and potential of e-Infrastructures for Digital Cultural Heritage purposes, and also of the correct protocols and procedures to follow in order to engage with them. The target audiences for these events will be museums, libraries, archives, researchers, cultural ministries and agencies and other actors who could be responsible for cultural heritage activities and initiatives. Representatives of the Digital Cultural Heritage community from other countries (beyond the consortium) will be invited to the national events.

Contact persons for WP6: Antonella Fresa, ICCU; Christophe Dessaux, MCC

WP7, Management and Governance, is responsible for the efficient delivery of the project, for progress monitoring and for self assessment and evaluation. The project is coordinated by the ICCU, Central Institute of the Italian Cultural Ministry. The Project Manager is Rosella Caffo, who has extensive experience of similar roles in other multi-Ministry projects including MICHAEL, MICHAEL Plus, MINERVA, MINERVA-Plus and MINERVAeC. The Project Manager is assisted by the Technical Coordinator Antonella Fresa who has successfully worked in this role in all the above mentioned projects and who has gained full trust by the project partners.

Contact persons for WP7: Rossella Caffo, ICCU; Antonella Fresa, ICCU