Europeana Challenge - fashion

19 December 2016

We're delighted to announce that the winning project of the second Europeana Challenge of 2016 is the team behind CRAFT, the creative artificial fashion tool. The CRAFT tool can be embedded in the product page of online stores and provide a quality service to increase user retention and product sales. The playful feature will capture users’ attention and make them stay longer on the site, revisit and even share their creative digital cultural heritage creation to their favourite social media platform. From a retailer’s perspective, the CRAFT tool will provide a unique understanding of their online shopping audience, help spot new fashion trends, enhance brand awareness through re-sharing of content and increase sales.

Find out more on our blog post and sign up to our mailing list to stay up to date on future challenges and opportunities. For your information, you can read about the Challenge below.

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The second Europeana Challenge of 2016

Theme: Fashion
Prize: Total of €20.000 for the best project idea(s)
Submission deadline: 31 October 2016 (23.59 CET)

Calling all developers, designers, makers, artists, educators and cultural heritage digital thinkers! We’re offering a share of €20.000 for the best idea(s) of how to creatively re-use Europeana and Europeana Fashion’s openly licensed fashion content in a digital product, service or business. Winner(s) will also benefit from promotion and additional non-financial business development support to help realize their ideas. We are pleased to be working in collaboration with Europeana Fashion, their network and providers to promote the reuse of Europeana’s content within the wider fashion and fashion heritage community.

Timeline

• Online application period: 19 September – 31 October (23.59 CET)
• Panel assessment period: 1 November 2016 – 23 November 2016
• Notifications for unsuccessful applicants and invitations to Skype interview for shortlisted candidates: by 25 November 2016
• Skype interviews and communication of interview outcome: 28 November - 9 December 2016
• Winner(s) announced on Europeana Labs: by 19 December 2016
• Deadline to deliver the winning product/service: 30 June 2017

Who and what is eligible?
We invite applications from:

• Individuals or teams of creatives interested in designing fantastic digital products and services using digital cultural heritage content.
• Creative minds from anywhere in the world.

Your product/service must:

• Be digital.
• Meet the challenge theme.
• Re-use Europeana openly licensed content. Usage of the Europeana API is optional; you can also manually download items.
• Be delivered on or before 30 June 2017.

We can accept entries which are:

• Of various types - eligible proposals include but are not limited to digital applications, web services, MOOCs on the theme of fashion, business ideas based on modern technologies such as laser cutting, 3D printing, etc.
• At various stages of maturity (concept, prototype, early stage product). Applications should be supported with digital visual proof or illustration of the product/service (e.g. for a web-based platform, you could send us a webpage in alpha or a PDF of your intended website design).
• Existing applications when they are based on the challenge theme and meet the criteria below. They must further the business potential of the existing application - significant new developments must be planned and described in the application.

We do NOT accept:

• Projects in receipt of other EU funding.
• Publication of PhD thesis and similar scientific publications even if related to the challenge theme.

Important! Applicants must be registered as legal entities in their respective country. This is required for the contractual arrangement with Europeana (see our frequently asked questions for more information).

Assessment criteria
Successful applications will deliver a product/service/business that:

• Has Europeana content as a central element;
• Demonstrates the potential to deliver tangible social and/or economic impact e.g. products and services which meet one or more of the following criteria:
  • Offer novel and engaging ways of experiencing and/or interacting with digital cultural content; and/or
  • Support lifelong learning e.g. have a strong educational element; and/or
  • Enable commercial re-use of cultural data; and,
• Has a clear business model (addressing key elements, such as target market and audiences, value proposition, technical feasibility, sustainability for a period of 1-3 years).

Application submission
Applicants must submit their entries only via the simple form below. Once you submit your application there will be no further chance to edit your proposal, so ensure that you work on it carefully before submitting.

The deadline for the second Europeana Challenge has now passed. Sign up to our mailing list on Labs.europeana.eu to stay in touch and learn about future challenges and opportunities.

Application support
We are not able to review or comment on your application or project idea or provide extensive advice during the application period. See the bottom of the page for various resources to assist your creative process.

Make sure you read our frequently asked questions before submitting your proposal.

Judging process
Your application will first be screened by the re-use team against the competition criteria above. Eligible applications will then be assessed by an external panel of experts drawn from across the fashion, creative industries and cultural heritage sector in Europe. The highest scoring proposals will be invited for a Skype interview with the assessment panel and winners will be announced on 19 December 2016. Find out more about the assessment criteria.

Feedback
Where possible, we will give feedback to unsuccessful applicants by 19 December 2016. Please note that this is an extremely competitive process and we anticipate many applications.

Prize information
The challenge winner(s) will receive a share of the €20.000 budget. Multiple projects may be funded within this amount and the exact funding amount will vary depending on how well the entry meets the challenge criteria and what its development needs are. Recommendations on the amount of investment will be made by the panel and so it may not match the requested funding.

Successful applicants can also receive a non-financial business support, such as participation in co-creation and crowdfunding workshops. Winning proposals will be extensively promoted via the Europeana and Europeana Labs communication channels and, where possible, via Europeana partner channels.

Conditions of funding
The winner(s) will sign a subcontract with the Europeana Foundation. A staged payment schedule and delivery points will be agreed between Europeana and the winning applicant(s). The funding will cover the period until 30 June 2017 so you must plan to deliver the agreed app/product on or before this date.

Copyright
You own the intellectual property in whatever you develop. On your finished product and on any related website or materials you must use the ‘Made with Europeana’ logo.

Resources

Technical support

• Find out how to search Europeana's platform using Europeana Fashion's custom filters.
• Extensive information package on using the Europeana APIs.
• Bulk downloading media and metadata using the Europeana API.
• Technical support via the API forum.

#EuropeanaInspires

• Guidance on searching Europeana Collections.
• Fashion-related openly licensed datasets.
• Check our blog for frequently updated ideas and inspiration.
• Europeana Collections and boards on Pinterest.
• Europeana Fashion specially curated themes, blogs and search function.