ECHOES Consultation: the voice of the cultural heritage community

ETT is an active partner in the ECHOES – European Cloud for Heritage OpEn Science project, a strategic European initiative aimed at creating the European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage (ECCCH). The goal is to foster collaboration among cultural heritage professionals, institutions, and researchers through a shared digital infrastructure.

One of the main tools to achieve this is the ECHOES Consultation—a listening and engagement process designed to involve communities working in the sector. Its aim is to understand how digital tools are currently used, what needs and expectations exist, and how these insights can guide the development of the cloud infrastructure.

The consultation begins with an online questionnaire, available until the end of June 2025, and open to all cultural heritage stakeholders: professionals, researchers, developers, institutions, associations, and organizations. The survey explores participants’ professional backgrounds, the types of heritage they work with, their everyday digital practices, and their needs in terms of tools, data, infrastructure, and collaboration.

This first phase will be followed by a series of workshops, focus groups, and targeted interviews to ensure the process is as inclusive and representative as possible. The information gathered will allow the ECHOES consortium to:

• develop an effective community-building strategy,
• define the cloud’s technological architecture,
• launch new collaborations and training initiatives.

Special attention is given to smaller organizations and professionals working in less traditional areas of cultural heritage, to ensure that the future cloud is truly built with and for all communities.

Find out more and take part in the consultation.