How do we make digital heritage actually work for everyone? INFINITY, in collaboration with the Data Space for Cultural Heritage, is launching two targeted surveys to benchmark the tools of the future. Whether you manage collections or create new content, your expertise is the missing link.
Act now: complete the Surveys
For curators & archivists: help us evaluate how collections are managed and enriched.
Take the Survey on Collections Management
For researchers & creators: tell us how you reuse digital assets and what barriers you face.
Take the Survey on Reuse
Why your input is critical
The cultural heritage sector is at a crossroads. While digitization has unlocked global access, we still struggle with fragmented data, complex IPR regulations, and tools that don’t always capture the multi-dimensional nature of our history.
As part of Work Package 4, INFINITY is conducting a dual-track assessment. We aren’t just looking for technical data; we need to understand the real-world choices, strategic hurdles, and sustainability challenges that institutions face every day.
The Mission: benchmarking excellence
These surveys are critical steps in building the European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage (ECCCH). By participating, you will help us:
Evaluate capabilities: assess the enrichment and reuse potential of commonly used Collection Management Systems (CMS).
Navigate IPR: identify gaps in current business models and intellectual property frameworks to ensure ethical and sustainable reuse.
Design better tools: provide direct input for the requirements of the INFINITY ecosystem, ensuring our AI-driven tools meet your actual needs.
Who should participate?
We are looking for a diverse range of perspectives:
CH professionals: to provide insights on management workflows.
Creative industry leaders & researchers: to highlight the needs for high-quality, reusable data.
Be part of the “Knowledge Web”
INFINITY is about a participatory approach to technology. By sharing your thoughts, you contribute to the creation of Multidimensional Knowledge Graphs that respect a multiplicity of viewpoints and audiences.
“The success of our digital ecosystem relies on real-world feedback. These surveys ensure that the technology we deliver is robust, fair, and truly useful for the community.”
Act now: complete the Surveys
For curators & archivists: help us evaluate how collections are managed and enriched.
Take the Survey on Collections Management
For researchers & creators: tell us how you reuse digital assets and what barriers you face.
Take the Survey on Reuse
Image credits:
Title: Arpajaisyhdistys ry:n työntekijä suunnittelemassa aseveliarpoja
Creator: Viljo Pietinen
Institution: Finnish Heritage Agency via Europeana
Digital cultural heritage risks becoming a distorted echo of the past if built on fragmented data. At the DIGHT-Net Seminar in Tallinn, INFINITY Project Coordinator Valentina Presutti argued that data quality isn’t just a technical detail—it is an ethical obligation for Europe’s digital future.
Highlighting the “Invisible” Responsibilities of AI
The dissemination activities of the INFINITY project continue at a fast pace. On April 17, 2026, Valentina Presutti from the University of Bologna delivered a keynote at the Frontiers in Digital Cultural Heritage seminar hosted by Tallinn University.
In her talk, titled “Data Quality and Ethics in Cultural Heritage Knowledge Graphs,” Presutti addressed a critical issue: Knowledge Graphs (KGs) do more than just link databases; they actively shape historical narratives and directly determine whether the AI systems of tomorrow will be reliable or biased. Massive investments over the last two decades have provided unprecedented remote access to cultural resources, but without critical technical intervention, we risk automating systemic bias.
The technical meets the ethical: lessons from ArCo and ChoCo
Drawing from the research foundation that powers INFINITY’s neuro-symbolic approach, the presentation explored how to manage data quality across two main dimensions:
The Technical Challenge (Extreme Heterogeneity & Inconsistency): data exists in countless incompatible formats. Presutti highlighted ChoCo, a Knowledge Graph that integrated 18 disconnected music datasets using different notations , and ArCo, which transformed the entire official Italian Cultural Heritage Catalogue into a scalable semantic network despite varying field granularity.
The Ethical Dimension (The Coded Gaze): technical quality control is deeply linked to cultural biases. For example, historical records like the Benin Bronzes are often described in museum labels as simply “collected in 1897,” effectively hiding the political reality that they were looted. Visuality and categorization are cultural practices, not neutral facts.
The INFINITY Solution: modeling the “Annotation Situation”
To address these challenges, the talk showcased how next-generation ecosystems must evolve . While structural standardization tools like ChoCo’s JAMifier or Chonverter align formats, a massive provenance gap still remains across global datasets.
INFINITY addresses this “trust deficit” by moving from asserting cold facts to Contextualizing Beliefs . Through advanced Multidimensional Knowledge Graphs (mKGs), our tools model the entire Annotation Situation—capturing Who made the label, When, and For What Purpose . This allows contested viewpoints to co-exist transparently, capturing data provenance alongside human and machine-driven metadata lifecycles.
A Collective Responsibility for the ECCCH
This keynote highlights INFINITY’s mission to make ethical practice and multi-perspectivity the native default within the European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage (ECCCH) ammiraglia framework . Closing the gap between cutting-edge technology and the humanities requires true interdisciplinary alignment between heritage experts, AI researchers, ethicists, and policymakers.
As we scale up our five real-world use cases—ranging from [CROWD]’s public post-WWII citizen science campaigns to [AUDIOVISUAL]’s copyright-aware video tracking—the insights shared in Tallinn will directly guide our software engineering rulebooks.
The European Cultural Heritage Cloud is taking shape, and INFINITY is leading the charge. At the ECHOES Second Annual Meeting in Poland, our consortium helped lay the technical and ethical foundations for the ECCCH.
Breaking the silos: a shared vision in Poznań
From March 16th to 20th, 2026, Poznań became the European capital of Digital Heritage. INFINITY played an active role in the ECHOES Second Annual Meeting, a high-stakes event that brought together the coordination team, European Commission representatives, independent board members, and “sister projects.”
The mission was clear from day one: accelerate the creation of the European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage (ECCCH), transforming fragmented, isolated data into a connected and accessible digital ecosystem.
Key Moments: AI, Governance, and Synergies
INFINITY contributed its technical and strategic expertise across several key sessions hosted at the National Museum in Poznań and the PCSS headquarters:
Advancement of technical development: we joined deep-dive discussions on the ECCCH ecosystem, sharing our progress in developing ethical AI models and multidimensional knowledge graphs.
Sister-Projects roundtable: a vital forum for identifying technical and operational synergies, ensuring we maximize the impact of EU funding by avoiding duplication.
Cloud & Data Space integration: we contributed to the roundtable focused on the joint declaration between the Cultural Heritage Cloud and the Common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage—a decisive step for continental data interoperability.
Inspiration from the “PIAST AI Factory”: the keynote by Tomasz Parkoła (PCSS) on the potential of AI factories confirmed that INFINITY’s tech-heavy approach is exactly where the industry is heading.
Why Poznań was a turning point for INFINITY
Our participation wasn’t just about visibility; it was about deep integration. INFINITY is a core member of the ECHOES Integration Task Force, the working group ensuring that our solutions—such as data provenance tracking and transparent AI annotations—perfectly align with the global infrastructure ECHOES is building.
“ECHOES and INFINITY share a single mission: not just to digitize the past, but to make it ‘alive’ through digital tools that respect European values of democracy and inclusion.”
What’s Next?
We left Poznań with a sharpened roadmap. The feedback gathered from sector professionals and tech partners during the consultation sessions will be immediately funneled into the development of our six use cases. The path toward a digital, ethical, and shared European memory is now clearly paved.
European history isn’t just in books; it’s trapped in disconnected silos of data. INFINITY is the €6 million “knowledge web” designed to break these barriers, using ethical AI to transform fragile heritage into a high-value engine for the creative economy and global research.
Moving beyond simple digitization
For years, we thought scanning a document was enough. It isn’t. Disconnected digital data is an ocean where history goes to drown. INFINITY changes the game by using Artificial Intelligence to weave together isolated photos, videos, and manuscripts into a dynamic “knowledge web”.
Led by the University of Bologna, this consortium of 16 international centers of excellence is building Multidimensional Knowledge Graphs (mKGs). These graphs capture the “invisible” layers of an object—its social history, economic value, and spatial context—ensuring every AI annotation is transparent and accountable.
Six ways we are activating the past
To prove the tech works, INFINITY is deploying six real-world use cases that sound like science fiction but are happening now:
MANUSCRIPTS (automated transcription): converts ancient manuscripts into searchable and machine readable digital text.
CROWD (participatory memory): aggregates private archives and personal narratives to reconstruct collective memories (e.g., war survivor accounts).
AUDIOVISUAL (video archives): enables filmmakers to source and utilise historical footage while ensuring ethical and copyright compliance.
ARCHIVE (ethical documentation): organises vast archive repositories, visualising links between individuals, locations, and events.
4DGRID (Geo-Temporal Alignment): creates 4D digital twins of urban environments by aligning historical maps and photographs with modern geodata.
3DARCHEO (Digital Archaeology): enhances the documentation of prehistoric rock art through innovative RTI workflows that capture micro-topographic details invisible to the naked eye.
Why it matters: the ECCCH connection
INFINITY isn’t an island. It is a critical pillar of the European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage (ECCCH). By bridging the gap between raw data and the creative economy, we ensure that European heritage remains a high-quality, transparent resource for sustainable innovation.
“INFINITY builds ethical AI that empowers cultural institutions to transform European heritage into a high-value resource for researchers and the creative economy”.
Empowering the sector: the upcoming Open Call
To ensure these technologies reach the real world, INFINITY will include a dedicated Open Call with a total funding of €650,000. This initiative will be designed to support cultural institutions and creative industries across Europe that are looking to implement these innovative solutions within their local contexts. Stay tuned for more details on how to participate and bring the power of INFINITY to your community.
Project partners
The INFINITY consortium comprises 16 international centres of excellence, led by the University of Bologna (IT) and including: Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH (AT), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (IT), Culture & Creativity South West SL (ES), Digital Paths Società Benefit srl (IT), Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (CH), Europeana (NL), Facts & Files Digital Services GmbH (DE), Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena (DE), Ministero della Cultura and Istituto Centrale per gli Archivi (IT), Poznańskie Centrum Superkomputerowo-Sieciowe (PL), Stichting Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid (NL), Storypact GmbH (DE), The University of Edinburgh (UK), Time Machine Organisation (AT), and Uniwersytet Wrocławski (PL).
