The “Competence Centre for the Conservation of Cultural Heritage (4CH)”, a new project funded in the context of the EU H2020 framework programme, held its kick-off meeting via teleconferencing on the 9^th of February 2021. During this virtual meeting, the project partners presented their expected contributions and innovations and formulated a solid work plan towards the successful initiation and implementation of 4CH.  FORTH participates in 4CH with two major research teams, long active in the field of Heritage Science: the Centre for Cultural Informatics of the Information Systems Laboratory of the Institute of Computer Science (FORTH-ICS), and the group of Photonics for Heritage Science of the Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser (FORTH-IESL).

The Consortium in charge of the 4CH project includes leading institutions from the academia, industry, SMEs and research centres with complementary expertise and a wide geographic coverage of Europe. Coordinator is Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) from Italy. The project consortium comprises of 19 organizations in academic, industrial/technology and CH domains. The Consortium is open to cooperation with heritage agencies and ministries, research centres and SMEs willing to pursue cultural heritage conservation, preservation and valorisation through digital technologies.

4CH officially started on January 1, 2021 for a duration of three years. The project aims to set up the methodological, procedural, and organizational framework of a Competence Centre being a major point of European reference for transnational and interdisciplinary networking in the preservation of Cultural Heritage and providing national and regional Cultural Institutions with advice, support and services focused on the preservation and conservation of historical monuments and sites using state-of-the-art ICT technologies.

The key objectives of 4CH are to:

• Establish the methodological framework for the Competence Centre focusing on advanced digitization concepts and tools for preservation and conservation of Monuments and Sites;
• To design and implement a Platform that will enable the Competence Centre to support the interaction and interdisciplinary collaboration among European CH Institutions;
• Increase and enhance the digitization of Cultural Heritage to support conservation;
• Develop best practices to make full use of CH data for the benefit of the Cultural Heritage sector and in other domains;
• Define the operational, financial and legal conditions for the creation of the Competence Centre and furthermore for its sustainability in the long term.

The Competence Centre will promote a holistic and multidisciplinary approach to the conservation of CH and facilitate coordination between Heritage Agencies and CH Institutions across Europe and ongoing European initiatives.

Innovative services and tools will be provided by 4CH that will facilitate and support preservation and conservation of monuments and sites making use of the latest, most effective technologies. These will be achieved by:

• Establishing a map of key research and cutting-edge technologies relevant to preservation, conservation and sustainable promotion of monuments and sites, which will be regularly updated;
• Reporting on the most valuable initiatives, experiences and best practices across Europe and internationally;
• Defining training and upskilling programmes for cultural heritage institutions, operators and professionals;
• Developing consultancy, guidelines and protocols concerning the use of ICT with a special attention to 3D technologies for management and their integration with monitoring technologies and sensors.

The target user community for 4CH includes:

• CH institutions and other bodies, both public and private, responsible for managing European monuments, buildings and sites, safeguarding and preserving them from damage and making them accessible for public enjoyment;
• CH professionals and SMEs providing services for preservation, conservation and restoration, including large-scale and high-quality heritage digitization, and exploiting data to plan and manage interventions;
• Professionals and companies from the Creative Industry and Hospitality sectors which re-use data to produce heritage-based content, apps, games, education and tourist-oriented services;
• Heritage agencies, public bodies such as ministries and decision-makers (insurance companies, large owners, etc.) who inform policies and strategies for conservation, preservation and digitization.

More information about 4CH can be found at https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101004468, and https://www.4ch-project.eu/

Contact Persons for 4CH:

• Yannis Tzitzikas, Head of the Centre for Cultural Informatics of FORTH-ICS, Associate Professor at the Computer Science Department, University of Crete.
• Demetrios Anglos, Associated Researcher at FORTH-IESL, Processor at the Department of Chemistry, University of Crete