Heritage Malta

Heritage Malta is the national agency for museums and cultural heritage in Malta. It preserves, manages, and promotes Malta’s rich heritage through exhibitions, digitisation, and educational initiatives. The agency is responsible for more than 90 heritage sites across the Maltese islands, including UNESCO heritage sites, and leads national efforts in cultural preservation, conservation, research, and public engagement across its network of museums and sites.Heritage Malta is a trusted content partner and aggregator for Europeana, contributing digitised assets from the national collection, including 2D, 3D, and audiovisual materials. It supports and collaborates with cultural institutions across Malta in digitisation and data publication efforts. In addition to digitising and providing access to cultural heritage content, Heritage Malta offers support to its partners in the following areas:

• Metadata standards, quality, and mapping: Metadata analysis, mapping to EDM, enrichment using controlled vocabularies (e.g., Getty AAT), support for multilingual and linked data approaches.
• Technical infrastructure: CMS systems integration, Data Centre Hosting Services.
• Digitisation services: 2D digitisation (photography, scanning), 3D capture including photogrammetry, structured light, LiDAR, RTI, audio and video documentation, digital storytelling.
• Content readiness: Ensuring content meets quality and contextual standards for educational use, research, tourism, and creative reuse.
• Open access + FAIR principles: Promoting transparency, accessibility, and reuse of cultural content through clear licensing and documentation.
• Public engagement: Co-creation projects, participatory digitisation, volunteering initiatives, and memory-based storytelling strategies.

Technical Conditions for Working with Heritage Malta:

• Metadata must be available in XML or JSON format, and accessible via direct export or OAI-PMH.
• Accepted metadata schemas include EDM and Dublin Core.
• Digital media must ideally be online, using IIIF-compatible services, oEmbed (video, audio), or Sketchfab (3D).
• Content rights must be clearly defined and labelled for Europeana-compliant publication in Creative Commons form.

Limitations: Primary focus is on cultural heritage assets held or managed by public institutions or within Malta’s national jurisdiction.

Financial Conditions: No annual fee; participation may be subject to project funding availability and institutional agreement.