About
INIDICATE is a two-years project (September 2010-August 2012), funded in the framework of the Seventh framework programme (e-Infrastructure).
The goal of the project is to coordinate policy and best practice regarding the use of e-Infrastructures for digital cultural heritage in countries all around the Mediterranean.
The project is establishing and stimulating a network of common interest made up of experts and researchers in all the relevant fields, whose sustainability will be planned on a long term beyond the project duration. The network will share experience, promote standards and guidelines, seek harmonisation of best practice and policy and act as a conduit for knowledge transfer from countries with more experience of e-Infrastructures-enabled e-culture to those who are just beginning to investigate this area.
The project is rooted in the reality of research pilots and case studies which will act as exemplars and demonstrators of the issues and the processes which are relevant to establishing cultural initiatives on the e-Infrastructures platform.
The results will inform a wide-reaching dissemination work-package, including two major public best practice deliverables, one international conference, three technical workshops and one policy workshop.
The project builds on a wealth of experience in effective international coordination of digitisation, digital cultural heritage and e-Infrastructures-enabled culture. It takes full cognisance and advantage of e-Infrastructures and cultural projects which have gone before and will actively seek interaction and synergies with other projects in this area. The impact on international collaboration and on digital cultural heritage in the Mediterranean region will be substantial.
Objectives
The main objectives of INDICATE are, from one side, the coordination of cultural heritage research opportunities opened by e-Infrastructures in countries all around the Mediterranean region and, from the other side, the development of consistent policies and best practices governing
such research.
INDICATE project aims to establish and nurture a network of common interest made up of experts and researchers in all the relevant fields, whose sustainability will be planned on a long term beyond the project duration. The network shares experiences, promotes standards and guidelines, seeks harmonisation of best practice and policy and acts as a conduit for knowledge transfer from countries with more experience of e-Infrastructures- enabled e-culture to those who are just beginning to investigate this area.
INDICATE is focused on the development of new research communities, new policies and new relationships
that add value to existing e-Infrastructures by:
- Promoting common approaches to the support of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (AHSS) activities by e-Infrastructures;
- Stimulating the international cooperation of networks of e-Infrastructure providers and application users in AHSS and digital culture domains.
The project is rooted in the reality of research pilots and case studies which act as exemplars and demonstrators of the issues and the processes which are relevant to establishing cultural initiatives on the e-Infrastructure based platforms.
Impact
The major impact of INDICATE will be on international cooperation, harmonised policies, facilitated research collaboration both at applicationto-application and application-to-infrastructure levels, improved effectiveness and efficiency of e-Infrastructure-enabled e-culture projects and thus better services to the end user.
INDICATE will have an impact across three policy axes:
- Among digital cultural heritage organisations, to raise awareness of the potential for neservices built on e- Infrastructures and leading to new policies which stimulate international cultural collaboration on top of international e-Infrastructures;
- Between cultural heritage organisations and e-Infrastructure providers, leading to new policies which govern the relationships between e-Infrastructures and cultural heritage;
- Between countries in the EU and beyond (especially in the Mediterranean countries, but also in Latina America and the Far East), regarding harmonised e-Infrastructures for digital cultural heritage, both internally and across national and EU boundaries.
INDICATE will lead to the formulation of harmonised policies for e-Infrastructures-enabled cultural projects. Its extra- European scope means that the policies are not specific for an EU audience, but are indeed focused on sharing the benefits of intra-EU research with a wider audience, thus fostering a culture of cooperation between EU stakeholders and those in third countries.
