Collected, digitizes, used?
At the Stakeholder Forum 2025 at the Ars Electronica Centre Linz, experts discussed how innovation is created from data.
Innovation needs Infrastructure: Cultural Heritage. Digital. Enhanced.
Under the motto "Innovation needs infrastructure. Cultural heritage. Digital. Thinking ahead.", the Federal Ministry of Housing, Arts, Culture, Media and Sport (BMWKMS), together with the Kulturpool, the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) and the Ars Electronica Center, hosted a multifaceted programme with plenty of room for discussion and exchange.
The forum kicked off with an informative and interactive event organised by the FFG as part of the Horizon Europe Community Austria. Short presentations provided a comprehensive overview of the initiatives Cultural Heritage Cloud - or European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage (ECCCH), the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and the Common European data space for cultural heritage (CD4CH). Angela Wieser (FFG) then discussed the possible applications and uses of the programmes with Christoph Steindl (Austrian National Library), Barbara Sánchez Solís (TU Vienna) and George Ioannidis (Time Machine Organisation). At the end of the three-hour workshop, participants were invited to discuss any priorities, fears and hopes regarding the shared and open use of digitised cultural data in a World Café format. Information on the workshop and the relevant (funding) programmes (Horizon Europe Cluster 2, Digital Europe and NCP-IP) can also be found on the Horizon Europe Community platform.
Visit to Deep Space 8K at the Ars Electronica Centre
This was followed by presentations by Saskia Scheltjens, Head of the Research Services Department and Chief Librarian at the Rijksmuseum Research Library in Amsterdam, Maximilian Schich, Professor of Cultural Data Analysis at Tallinn University and Ross Parry, Professor of Museum Technology at the School of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester and Founding Director of the Institute for Digital Culture. The keynotes were complemented by concise lightning talks focussing on current projects. The speakers included Christian Panigl (ACOnet, University of Vienna), Raman Ganguly (PHAIDRA, University of Vienna), Stefan Eichert (bITEM - Beyond the Item, NHM Vienna), Andreas Scheucher and Ilja Slamar (Salzzeit.at), Jonas Glaser (Graz University of Technology) and Markus Wiesenhofer (Art Leap on Roblox, Belvedere Museum Vienna).
The two-day event was rounded off with a high-calibre panel discussion. A highlight of the first day of the forum was a visit to Deep Space 8K at the Ars Electronica Center, where a programme put together especially for the participants gave them a taste of the multidimensional presentation and processing of cultural heritage data - including an excerpt from the interactive application "Playing Anton" and a three-dimensional tour of the pyramids of Giza.
Making cultural heritage visible with confidence
In her welcoming address, Doris Wolfslehner (BMWKMS) emphasised the importance of the Kulturpool for the visibility and accessibility of Austrian cultural heritage. She emphasised the potential of cross-institutional and cross-regional cooperation, which the Kulturpool would like to do more of in its role as a competence centre in the future. "We are particularly pleased that we are coming to Linz with the Stakeholder Forum 2025 and discussing the question of how innovation is created from data outside of Vienna," said Wolfslehner, who thanked the Upper Austrian host. "The Ars Electronica Center is the place where we must and should talk about digitalisation."
In her welcoming address, Katrin Vohland (NHM Vienna) emphasised that infrastructure is needed for the innovative use of cultural heritage data. "Culture and critical self-reflection are among our strengths in Europe," said Vohland, who argued in favour of increased self-confidence in the cultural sector. Her previous experience with ambitious projects such as the reorganisation of the cultural pool at the Natural History Museum Vienna had shown one thing: in order to create sustainable infrastructures, trust and responsible action are needed in addition to financial resources.
"Data is not neutral."
Museums need to break out of their silos and cooperate more closely - this was the appeal that Saskia Scheltjens made to the participants of the Stakeholder Forum 2025. In her opening presentation, she shared her experiences as Head of the Research Services Department at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. According to Scheltjens, the museum had the courage to undertake a comprehensive reorganisation based on a keen awareness of the value of data. Although the museum's digital transformation began in the 1980s, it was the necessary closure between 2003 and 2013 due to renovation work and pressure from the public and press that accelerated the process. Large-scale digitisation projects followed, and experience with ambitious projects such as the reorganisation of the cultural pool at the Natural History Museum Vienna showed one thing: in addition to financial resources, trust and responsible action are needed above all to make infrastructures sustainable.
Digitisation is part of a larger development that affects an organisation as a whole.
Museums in the post-digital world
Day two of the forum started with a focus on infrastructure. Ross Parry (University of Leicester) shared his experiences in creating digital infrastructures for museums based on a "holistic view". Digital and analogue can no longer be considered separately, which is why content, infrastructure and user experiences must be thought of and addressed as hybrid. Parry is convinced that museums have the task of making cultural heritage accessible and tangible for as many people as possible. Diversity in the digital age means understanding the different senses and subjective approaches of visitors and - using digital means - taking them into account for the museum experience.
In the post-digital age, vision sets the direction, leadership brings change, processes enable change - and people drive innovation.
Make innovation visible
Two lightning talks by the University of Vienna on “ACOnet” (Christian Panigl) and “Phaidra” (Raman Ganguly) showed the developments that infrastructures have undergone in recent decades. The focus on “Re-use” was introduced by a lecture by Maximilian Schich (University of Tallinn). Under the title “Who is afraid of cultural data analysis?”, Schich made a plea for interdisciplinary research and work. “We need analysis across all academic disciplines,” said Schich, who also offered insights into different examples and potentials of data-based analysis. Networks, spaces of meaning and patterns can only be recognized when data is harmonized and made accessible. “You determine what goes into the database,” Schich appealed to the audience, ”but this then results in something that we have to measure.”
In his lightning talk, Stefan Eichert (NHM Vienna) presented the open source development “Beyond the item” (bitem.at), which links objects, people and places for innovative storytelling and presents them in an attractive way. Markus Wiesenhofer (Belvedere Vienna), who presented the new Roblox game “Art Leap”, showed how young people's interest in cultural heritage can be awakened. Andreas Scheucher (Scenomedia Gesmbh) and Ilja Slamar (Iljafilm) presented the virtual museum for the Salzkammergut (salzzeit.at) in their talk. Jonas Glaser (TU Graz) gave insights into his bachelor thesis, in the course of which he linked gamification elements with Kulturpool data.
More than data, but how?
At the panel discussion “More than Data. New Approaches to Reuse, Infrastructure and Innovation”, speakers Scheltjens, Parry, Panigl and Schich, together with computer science professor Johanna Pirker (Graz University of Technology), explored the question of how innovation in the cultural heritage sector can be driven forward and what is needed to specifically promote creative projects with cultural data.
The participants agreed that museums need to think beyond simply collecting data: It's about giving users real opportunities for action and promoting innovation through sharing. Technical infrastructure such as the internet and computing capacities are important, but so are physical spaces for encounters and discussions.
Sustainable communities from the fields of IT, mediation, various scientific disciplines and the arts are crucial, as are long-term funding models. Inspired by the challenge from moderator Doris Wolfslehner (BMWKMS), the panel concluded with recommendations for cultural heritage institutions: It was central to encourage employees to learn about technologies and how to handle sensitive content, to push interdisciplinary collaboration and, last but not least, to ensure that data is made as easily accessible and citable as possible when it comes to digitization. All of this would ultimately lead to innovative uses (i.e. “more than data”). Or to paraphrase Ross Parry, who summed up the path to innovation in his presentation: In the post-digital age, vision sets the direction, leadership brings change, processes enable change - and people drive innovation.