EU-wide Advantages & Opportunities – HORIZON-CL2-2025-01-HERITAGE-08

1. Single Market Access

Why it matters: 450+ million citizens, 230 million annual cultural tourists, >€413 bn CCIs turnover.

Opportunities:

• Deploy the Strategic Research & Innovation Agenda (SRIA) as a market-shaping blueprint for 27 Member States, ensuring common service specifications (e.g., digital interpretive tools, AR/VR packages) that any museum, archive or tour operator can procure without re-engineering.

• Pilot adaptive-reuse business models (co-working hubs, creative incubators in former industrial/colonial sites) that can be franchised EU-wide under the Services Directive.

• Create a ‘Contested Heritage Seal of Excellence’ recognised across the single market, boosting visitor flows and ethical merchandising.

2. Cross-Border Collaboration & Knowledge Exchange

• Mandatory consortium => minimum three countries; leverage Horizon’s favourable rule to add Associated Countries (Western Balkans, Ukraine, Norway, etc.) and global partners for comparison cases.

• Build a pan-European network of "living laboratories" (e.g., Gdańsk Shipyard, Berlin Tempelhof Airport, Port of Marseille colonial warehouses) to test conservation techniques under diverse climatic zones and legal regimes.

• Joint PhD/post-doc mobility via MSCA, COST Actions and Erasmus+ blended intensives to institutionalise exchanges beyond project life.

3. Alignment with Flagship EU Strategies

• European Green Deal / New European Bauhaus – eco-retrofitting of heritage sites, circular material use, nature-culture landscape management.

• Digital Europe & ECCCH – upload FAIR datasets; exploit common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage for AI-driven visitor analytics.

• EU Gender Equality Strategy & Union of Equality – intersectional guidelines embedded in SRIA become reference for national heritage laws.

• Transition Pathway for Tourism – integrate contested heritage routes into Destination Management Plans and EU Sustainable Travel Labels.

4. Regulatory Harmonisation & Standard Setting

• Use CEN/TC 346 (Conservation of Cultural Heritage) to propose new EU technical standards on documenting dissonant narratives and social value assessment.

• Common GDPR-compliant consent model for digitising sensitive artefacts, easing cross-border data flows.

• Contribute to forthcoming EU Code of Ethics on Colonial Collections (2026 WP), influencing national restitutions policies.

5. Access to Europe’s Innovation Ecosystem

• Tap into E-RIHS labs for non-invasive conservation science; free transnational access vouchers lower costs.

• Partner with EIT Culture & Creativity KIC to accelerate spin-offs (serious games, immersive storytelling) and reach private investors via KIC’s Investment Club.

• Interface with regional S3 (Smart Specialisation) clusters such as ‘Heritage SmartLab’ (Andalusia) or ‘Digital Storytelling Valley’ (Flanders).

6. Funding Synergies & Leveraging

• Seal of Excellence enables ERDF/ESF+ top-up for pilots in less-developed regions.

• Combine LIFE funds for energy-efficient retrofitting; Creative Europe for audience development; Interreg for cross-border routes; CERV for democratic engagement.

• Use InvestEU Social Impact window to scale financially viable adaptive-reuse schemes after Horizon funding ends.

7. EU-Scale Deployment & Impact

• SRIA endorsed by the Council of Europe & European Heritage Label network → rapid diffusion into national curricula and tourism brochures.

• Aggregated open datasets feed into Europeana & ECCCH, ensuring long-term visibility and reuse by SMEs.

• Harmonised indicators (visitor sentiment, carbon footprint, social cohesion) allow benchmarking across Member States, facilitating policy uptake under the European Semester.

8. Stakeholder-Specific Value

• Local Authorities – ready-made procurement templates & policy briefs aligned with EU State-aid rules.

• CCIs & SMEs – patent-free tools, open-source code (obligatory under call) and a transnational sandbox to test business models in different legal and linguistic settings.

• Academia – guaranteed open-access publication costs, EOSC compliance, and visibility in ESFRI roadmaps.

• Citizens – inclusive, multilingual digital experiences that travel across borders, strengthening European identity while honouring diversity.

9. Risk Mitigation Through EU Frameworks

• Horizon Lump-Sum model simplifies cost reporting, reducing administrative burden for smaller Eastern & Southern EU partners.

• EU ethical advisory boards and the ALLEA code ensure sensitive handling of contested narratives, mitigating reputational risks.

10. Long-Term Strategic Positioning

By operating at EU scale, the project can:

• Shape the 2028-2034 Horizon Europe successor Work Programme via the SRIA.

• Influence EU external action (Global Europe) by exporting inclusive heritage governance models to partner countries, reinforcing Europe’s soft power.

• Contribute to EU climate-neutral heritage targets for 2030, providing replicable blueprints for the forthcoming Resilient Cultural Heritage Partnership.