Shadi Ardalan
Head of Member State Relations and Governance , Europeana Foundation
Do you work in cultural heritage policy? Are you interested in the progress of digitisation efforts in your country? Then be sure to explore the powerful Country Pages in the Metis Statistics Dashboard to unlock deeper insights.
The Metis Statistics Dashboards provide a clear and accessible overview of the cultural heritage collections displayed on Europeana.eu and in the common European data space for cultural heritage. The dashboards categorise data by country and institution, the amount of shared items, their quality and types, providing a digestible snapshot of the data available.
A particularly helpful element of the Dashboards are the Country Pages, which transform complex data into clear, actionable insights by providing a real-time view of EU Member States’ advancement towards critical European digitisation goals.
The Country Pages are directly linked to the objectives set out in the annex of the European Commission’s 2021 Recommendation (EU) 2021/1970 on a common European data space for cultural heritage. This Recommendation challenges Member States to accelerate the digital preservation of heritage, by setting targets for digitisation by 2025 and 2030. Country pages track not just overall progress, but also adherence to high-quality digitisation and the crucial focus on 3D content. You can also view the history of national progress and compare different Member States digitisation efforts.
The Country Pages are designed to be useful for all key national stakeholders
They offer Ministries of Culture and other involved ministries in digitisation of cultural heritage a strategic, high-level overview to inform policy, resource and funding allocation, and decision making. The data highlights areas of success and those requiring urgent investment to meet the 2025 and 2030 deadlines.
For aggregators who facilitate data sharing with Europeana, they provide benchmarking and alignment data, supporting efforts to coordinate with national targets, prioritise the ingestion of high-value and high-quality data, and focus on under-digitised domains, especially 3D assets.
Cultural heritage institutions can use the Country Pages to show how their institution’s efforts contribute to the national picture. The tool offers a clear context for digitisation priorities, helping justify projects, secure funding.
And finally, anyone involved in the cultural heritage sector, from professionals and researchers to technology providers, can use this resource to understand the national landscape and identify opportunities for collaboration, innovation, and strategic partnerships.
Country Pages are a collective roadmap to a fully accessible, digitally preserved European cultural heritage. With the 2025 milestone upon us, there’s no better moment to assess your trajectory.
We invite you to actively use this tool to check your country's progress! Go to the Metis Statistics Dashboard and select a country from the ‘Country Pages’ button to explore national efforts, identify successes, pinpoint any gaps and recalibrate strategy for the road ahead to 2030. We also invite you to share the tool widely among all relevant actors in your country, celebrate achievements, and ensure that Member States play their full part in building the common European data space for cultural heritage.
