Stories
2025-06-07

Introducing EXCENTRIC — collaborative digital transformation for Europe’s Cultural Sectors

In the face of growing digital complexity, cultural and creative organisations across Europe are confronting an urgent challenge: how to navigate digital transformation in ways that are ethical, inclusive, and sustainable without losing their core values or communities.

Enter EXCENTRIC.

EXCENTRIC is a Horizon Europe Innovation Action that brings together a consortium of cultural institutions, creative professionals, digital transition experts, and policy influencers across 10 countries. Our shared goal? To support Europe’s Cultural and Creative Sectors and Industries (CCSI) in achieving responsible, human-centred digital transformation.

Over the next three years, EXCENTRIC will develop, test, and scale a new model for collaborative data practice (CDP) — a way for cultural organisations to work with data that is fair, participatory, and built around real-world needs. We believe that transformation shouldn’t be imposed top-down. Instead, it should grow from the ground up, through open experimentation, mutual learning, and community care.

Why now?

Cultural institutions are increasingly expected to innovate — using data to understand audiences, optimise operations, and collaborate in new ways. But too often, they face this pressure with limited resources, unclear roadmaps, and tools that don’t fit their context.

EXCENTRIC responds to this gap by embedding digital transformation directly within six pilot organisations — ranging from museums and festivals to theatre houses and media labs. These pilots will be accompanied by sectoral umbrella organisations such as Europeana, the European Festivals Association (EFA), and Live DMA, who bring reach, insight, and connection to thousands of cultural professionals across Europe.

What makes EXCENTRIC different?

  • Human-centred: We begin with people — their needs, challenges, and capacity to shape their digital futures.

  • Collaborative: Our approach is co-created with practitioners, not just for them.

  • Open and responsible: From open-source tools to transparent data governance, we work with integrity at every step.

  • Pilot-driven: Real organisations, real workflows, real transformation.

What’s ahead?

In its first phase, EXCENTRIC is focused on understanding the digital readiness of pilot organisations and co-creating the foundations for collaboration. Soon, we’ll launch our first public storytelling materials, share updates from the pilots, and invite wider stakeholders to join our journey.

Later this year, we’ll kick off the EXCENTRIC Accelerator — a learning and co-design space — and host our first major event during Ars Electronica Festival 2025, activating our network of collaborators and early adopters.

Be part of it

Whether you’re a policymaker, digital designer, festival organiser, museum curator, or simply curious about the intersection of culture and data — there’s a place for you in EXCENTRIC.

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  • Explore the pilot stories
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Let’s reimagine digital transformation — together, and from the ground up.