The Digital Creativity Lab is an innovative educational programme for middle school and high school students (ages 11-19) and educators across Europe. It empowers participants to explore and reinterpret Europe’s rich digital cultural heritage using digital skills and creative design practices.

Building on the vast cultural heritage collections made available through Europeana.eu, the Lab introduces students and teachers to advanced search strategies, digital literacy, and creative reuse of online cultural content. Through in-depth mentorship sessions and hands-on capacity-building activities, participants will gain practical experience in design thinking, UX/UI principles and digital prototyping/concepting to imagine and build engaging digital experiences.

The programme culminates with a creative challenge that invites participants to apply their new skills by designing a digital product that reuses cultural heritage in an innovative way. Centred around the question,‘"How can we use digital cultural heritage and design thinking to tell a story, solve a problem, or share knowledge in a creative and engaging way?’, students are encouraged to explore topics that matter to them and their communities. Final projects might include virtual exhibitions, interactive maps, digital guided tours, educational apps, storytelling websites or game interfaces.

By the end of the programme, participants will have developed essential digital and creative skills while engaging with European cultural heritage and its value in shaping our shared present and future.

If you are an educator looking to engage students with digital cultural heritage and digital skills, the Digital Creativity Lab will give you the chance to:

• Build advanced digital search skills: Participants will learn techniques to find meaningful cultural content using Europeana.eu.

• Improve media literacy: Participants will understand digital rights and practice responsible reuse of cultural heritage resources.

• Develop design and innovation skills: participants will apply creative problem-solving and design thinking methods that are easily replicable in a variety of environments.

• Enhance visual storytelling and presentation: Participants will turn curated content into impactful stories and digital experiences for public engagement.

• Explore topics of importance to you and your students' community through creativity: Participants will use digital cultural heritage as a gateway to explore themes that matter to your community or the world around you.

Phase 1: Introductory capacity-building session

On 7 May 2025, during the C.R.E.A Cultura Festival in Foligno, Europeana will facilitate the Design Lab: Using Images for Impact workshop, which will introduce potential participants to the power of visual storytelling. This session will teach students and educators how to find and utilise public domain images from Europeana.eu. Participants will create posters and social media templates using visual material from Europena.eu while reinforcing the importance of critical media literacy and ethical image reuse.

Phase 2: Call for applications

The call is open to:

• Teachers in formal education (from primary to secondary and Vocational and Education training, VET) from European countries who have an interest in digital technologies for education. You should be interested in using digital cultural heritage and design to create a prototype of an innovative digital product that solves a problem, shares knowledge on or tells a story about an issue of importance to your community.
  

• European cultural professionals working in museums, archives, libraries and any other cultural heritage institutions who currently work with schools and students, and want to design a digital educational service or product

Phase 3: Selection of teams and development week

During the third week of May, a committee of Europeana Foundation staff and Egina will select a maximum of three teams to work on their projects and to be involved in the capacity development activities and final mentoring sessions. Teams will be selected according to the following criteria:

• Eligibility check: the applicant is from one of the two eligible categories and has correctly provided all the requested information in the online application form.

• Feasibility: the project proposed by the team can effectively benefit from the use of digital cultural heritage visual content and design-related mentoring.

Before the mentoring week, teams will receive a list of experts who will mentor them during a 30-minute session with up to three mentors during the development week.

Phase 4: The Europeana Digital Creativity Lab

The Europeana Digital Creativity Lab will take place online on 26 May 2025. The agenda will be shared with team leaders in due time. Europeana and our coorganisers EGInA and the CRHACK LAB FOLIGNO 4D will provide a team of experts who will meet the teams according to their needs to further develop their projects and pitch them during the final online event at the end of the week. The capacity building activities and mentoring sessions will cover a broad range of topics depending on participants' needs, such as UI/UX design, prototype concepting, web design, graphic and visual design, design thinking, digital storytelling, social media management and XR integration.

After the presentation of the final projects, the jury will meet for the final evaluation and selection of the most deserving project. They will evaluate the entries in four areas:

1. Creative use of digital cultural heritage: How meaningfully and innovatively the project reuses content from the Europeana collections.

2. Design and user experience: The effectiveness of the design in terms of usability, visual appeal, and overall user experience.

3. Innovation and creativity: The originality of the concept and how well it addresses a topic, challenge, or need.

4. Transferability and educational potential: The potential for the project to be adapted or applied in other educational or cultural contexts.

1. The winning team will be invited to Social Hackathon Umbria, from 3 to 6 July in Spello, Italy!