From data to practice: The latest from EXCENTRIC
The experiment is moving into the prototyping phase, a series of podcasts has been launched, and a new policy brief offers guidance for festivals navigating digital transition. Follow the latest news from EXCENTRIC, a project aimed at creating collaborative, human-centred ecosystems for a smart digital transition in Europe's cultural and creative sectors and industries.
EXCENTRIC is a Horizon Europe project EFA is engaged in until 2028. After a kick-off in February 2025 in Rotterdam and a collaborative moment later in September at Ars Electronica 2025, the project enters 2026 with new updates.
Europe’s Cultural and Creative Sectors and Industries (CCSI) often underutilise data, even though it can help with programming, pricing, resource management, and audience engagement. EXCENTRIC aims to support cultural organisations in developing Collaborative Data Practices: shared approaches to data that are human-centred, ethical, and sustainable.
At the heart of the project are six organisations, spanning live music, festivals, theatre, and museums. Each of these organisations are exploring a shared question through a specific project that is called a “pilot”: how can collaboration and data help cultural organisations thrive without losing their values? The answer, EXCENTRIC argues, lies not in technology alone, but in shared practices, governance, and collaboration. Know more.
From diagnostics to prototyping
The Network Activation Event at Ars Electronica 2025 brought together pilot representatives, cultural innovators, and data experts to move from diagnostics to prototyping within the project’s pilot development framework.
A standout moment was the interactive session led by Dr. Vikki Jones (University of Edinburgh, Institute for Design Informatics), whose research on data-driven innovation in the creative industries provided a critical lens for EXCENTRIC’s ambitions. Insights from Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society's audience mapping illustrated how data can serve not only efficiency purposes but also equity, experimentation, and community empowerment.
The first session of the Network Activation Event, hosted by Frank Kimenai (KEA European Affairs) and Margherita Soldati (Waag Futurelab), was designed as a Network Inspiration Event - a space for collective discussion, critical reflection, and strategic foresight. Pilots were grouped to explore their diagnostic findings and begin shaping their implementation roadmaps through a series of provocations:
- What are the bottlenecks in implementing your data practice?
- What shared values can support a collaborative data ecosystem?
- What makes you panic - and what gives you hope?
The event concluded with a demo of the Public AI Task Force, facilitated by Nesta’s Centre for Collective Intelligence. This participatory model allows cultural institutions to co-design policies around AI and data governance, reinforcing the project’s commitment to involving the public in decisions about emerging technologies.
New policy brief
A newly released policy brief addressed to European cultural and creative networks and umbrella practitioner organisations at national and supranational levels provides an overview of the current digital transition challenges in the CCSI. The brief has been built with and for the sector: it presents preliminary policy insights emerging from the first-year activities of the EXCENTRIC project, based on academic research, sector dialogue, empirical work with the pilot organisations, with the contributions from EXCENTRIC’s umbrella organisations Europeana, Live DMA, and the European Festivals Association, ensuring sector relevance and grounded insights.
The Policy Brief identifies the persistent challenges blocking digital transition in the CCSI:
- Fragmented and non‑comparable data practices
- Uneven digital literacy and resource constraints
- Ethical and legal uncertainty around data and AI
- Limited capacity for collaboration and data stewardship
The Brief presents a shared solution through Collaborative Data Ecosystems (CDEs). CDEs constitute a viable way for organisations to manage, share and use data collectively, under shared ethical rules, while keeping full data sovereignty. In other sectors - such as health, energy and logistics - similar approaches have already improved efficiency, trust and innovation.
Finally, the Brief introduces the ARCHS Framework as a practical compass for transition. ARCHS (Adaptable, Responsible, Collaborative, Human‑Centric, Sustainable) is a framework that helps CCSI organisations assess and align their data practices across workforce, organisational and network levels. ARCHS is not a compliance tool: it is a shared language and practical guide to make digital transition feasible, ethical and sector‑appropriate.
EXCENTRIC podcast launch
A new podcast series explores how collaboration and co-creation are becoming standard practice in Europe’s cultural and creative sectors. In the first episode, project coordinators Dr Erik Hitters and Dr Izabela Derda (Erasmus University Rotterdam- EUR) discuss the motivations behind EXCENTRIC’s human-centred approach to digital transition. More will follow in the upcoming months.
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Credits
Excentric is a project funded by Horizon Europe and led by Erasmus University Rotterdam, Ars Electronica, Waag Futurelab, MUSEUM BOOSTER, KEA European Affairs, Fondazione Romaeuropa, Računalniški muzej / Computer History Museum Slovenia, Oulu2026 - European Capital of Culture 2026, CTL Cultural Trend Lisbon, Stadt Dortmund, European Festivals Association, Live DMA, and Europeana.