Europeana 2025 - Preserve, Protect, Reuse will be held on 11-12 June 2025 during the Polish Presidency of the Council of the EU. This hybrid conference is organised in collaboration and partnership with the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of Poland, the National Institute of Cultural Heritage and the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, who will host the conference.

Europeana 2025 is organised within the common European data space for cultural heritage. It will explore critical questions facing the digital heritage sector and society at large, and how the data space can contribute to addressing them. It will delve into the preservation, protection and reuse of digital cultural heritage, both within the data space and beyond.

The conference is for professionals, students and policymakers working in, with and around cultural heritage, and interested in exploring the work of the common European data space for cultural heritage. We want the conference programme to be diverse and inclusive, and co-curate it with and for our sector through an open call for proposals. On this page, you can find all the information you need to submit your proposal for an interactive and engaging talk, webinar, workshop, session or intervention to be held online or in person during Europeana 2025.

Europeana 2025 takes place against a challenging global context. The extreme consequences of climate change, war in Ukraine, geopolitical instability and global conflicts threaten lives, peace and security. AI drives innovation, but poses challenges for society. At the same time, 2025 brings change, with a new European Commission and Parliament reshaping the political landscape and offering an opportunity to revitalise the European project.

Under these circumstances, digital cultural heritage can serve as a harbour and greenhouse of values like freedom, solidarity and democracy. The common European data space for cultural heritage can support efforts to reinvigorate the European project, at a time when the EU aims to lead with value-based technology and develop alternative, publicly funded digital infrastructures that serve the common good. In this context, protecting what makes up our ‘European way of life’ - our shared cultural heritage - and ensuring its preservation through digital technologies, gains an even greater significance. Encouraging the reuse of cultural heritage data - be it in education, enjoyment or research - reinforces its societal relevance, enhances the competitiveness of our sector and opens up innovative approaches to the wider challenges that we face.

Our call for proposals for sessions and interventions to be held during Europeana 2025 focuses on the themes of Preserve, Protect and Reuse. Find out more about what these themes encompass, and the topics we want to explore through them, below.

Preserve

Digital technologies offer exciting possibilities to preserve cultural heritage, allowing future generations to enjoy, learn and benefit from it. But preservation does not only relate to physical heritage; in a digital era, it also means making sure digital materials remain accessible over time. Sustaining and maintaining digital repositories and infrastructures to ensure the longevity, continuity and accessibility of digital cultural heritage online and in the data space.

Under this conference theme, we are interested in receiving proposals related to:

• Technical solutions and approaches which preserve and enrich cultural heritage data in the common European data space for cultural heritage

• Developments which ensure permanence, persistence and sustainability of cultural heritage data in the data space

• Innovative examples of how artificial intelligence and 3D technologies are being used to preserve tangible and intangible heritage, and digital practices

• Collaborations which seek to preserve and build connections between data from different sectors and industries for its maintenance and preservation

Protect

Cultural heritage is vulnerable to the passage of time, the destruction of war and the effects of climate change. While we seek to preserve our cultural heritage, we also need to take active steps to protect it and the digital processes which underpin it; and ensure the cybersecurity of the cultural heritage sector. This is a key priority of the Polish Presidency, and crucial as we look to build a robust and secure data space which offers participants control of their own data. Europeana 2025 supports Poland’s candidacy to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee ‘United for the Protection of Heritage’, referring to its commitment to international cultural cooperation and heritage preservation.

Under this conference theme, we are interested in receiving proposals related to:

• Innovative solutions and digital approaches to protecting heritage at risk from threats such as climate change, confit and illicit trafficking. We are particularly interested in giving a platform to the inspiring work of colleagues working to preserve the cultural heritage of Ukraine.

• The use and protection of personal data made available through the common European data space for cultural heritage (within cultural heritage data and metadata)

• Examples of how artificial intelligence is being used to protect tangible and intangible heritage.

• Activities to protect and strengthen the cybersecurity of cultural heritage institutions and data infrastructures

• Examples of how cultural heritage institutions, professionals and collections can foster digital and media literacy, enabling users to engage with digital content critically and responsibly, countering disinformation and fake news.

Reuse

Digital cultural heritage is a shared public good, and should be open for all to enjoy and benefit from. Encouraging its reuse for education, enjoyment, research and creativity, as well as in other industries like tourism and media, brings cultural heritage to new audiences and sharpens the innovation and competitiveness of our sector. The Europeana Public Domain Charter sees a thriving and healthy public domain as essential to the social and economic well-being of society. Advocating for open access and non-restrictive copyright practices is key to enable and support this reuse for generations to come.

Under this conference theme, we are interested in receiving proposals related to:

• Stories of how cultural heritage data from the data space has been reused for tourism, education, research and the creative industries, and how it could be reused in other data spaces.

• Examples and learnings of how advanced tech has reused cultural heritage data in, for example, augmented and virtual reality, and digital 3D experiences.

• Approaches to managing the reuse of cultural heritage data by Artificial intelligence (for example, through data mining) and the implications for cultural heritage institutions in permitting or disallowing this.

How cross-sectoral collaboration between different sectors and data spaces is supporting the reuse of cultural heritage data and content, in particular in a research context.

Our selection and programme board consist of representatives of the Europeana Initiative, including colleagues from the Europeana Foundation, Europeana Network Association Members Council and Europeana Aggregators’ Forum, alongside members of ENA communities, and representatives of the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, the National Institute of Cultural Heritage and the POLIN Museum.

Our selection criteria are designed to enable a broad and diverse selection and to facilitate a more inclusive and equitable call in order to open up the conference to new voices.

The proposals will be reviewed on the following:

• Does the proposal make it clear what outcomes the attendees will be able to get out of the session? (0 - not at all, 1 - partially, 2 - fully)

• Does the proposal speak to, involve, or collaborate with one or more of the conference's target audiences? (0 - not at all, 1 - partially, 2 - fully)

• Does the proposal offer something interesting, useful, innovative, or important to the event? (0 - not at all, 1 - partially, 2 - fully)

• Do the topics proposed represent diversity in the themes? (0 - not at all, 1 - partially, 2 - fully)

Once the proposal is submitted you will receive a confirmation email - make sure you check your spam folder if you don't have this message in your primary inbox.

The selection committee might contact you, before or after the first notice, with a request to merge or combine your proposal with another proposal. This will only be done if there is an overlap between the proposals.

Deadline

The deadline for the call for proposals is 25 February.

Final notice

You will get a final notice if your proposal has been selected by 21 March. We will provide brief feedback on proposals which are not selected.

Training and checks for online presentations

Authors of selected proposals will receive a short, voluntary training session and will be asked to participate in a mandatory technical check in May 2025.

The format examples below are intended to help you think of ways to maximise the impact of your contribution to Europeana 2025. The main criterion for choosing a format is the impact you want to make with your contribution.

Do you want participants to learn something from you? Do you want to learn from them? Do you want to raise the profile of a certain topic by encouraging discussions? Do you want participants to experience a thought process?

We welcome four different types of submissions:

• ‘Paper’ format (10min + 5min discussion) - Talk/Presentation or demo etc. This can be run online or onsite.

• ‘Lightning’ format (5min) - Lightning Talk or demo etc. This can only be run onsite.

• ‘Moderated’ discussions (45 min) - Presentations followed by a panel, Q&A sessions. This can be run onsite or online, but all speakers must attend in one format (all onsite, or all online).

• ‘Workshop’ format (45 min) - Workshop or tutorial etc. Please note that this format can only be run onsite.

Please note that if your proposal is accepted and join Europeana 2025 as a speaker onsite, you will have to cover your own costs of attendance and ticket to the conference.

If you have questions, please contact our events team (events@europeana.eu).