ECHOES Data Strategy for the CH Knowledge Base (D6.1)

This document, Deliverable D6.1 "Data Strategy for the CH Knowledge Base" establishes the foundational data and metadata management framework for the ECHOES project (European Cloud for Heritage Open Science). It outlines a comprehensive strategy to build a federated, semantically interoperable infrastructure that will support the creation, preservation, and reuse of Heritage Digital Twins (HDTs)—dynamic digital replicas of cultural heritage assets enriched with contextual knowledge. The strategy is designed to overcome critical challenges in the cultural heritage sector, including data fragmentation across institutions, semantic gaps, and scalability issues. It is grounded in core principles of semantic interoperability, a federated architecture that respects data ownership and provenance, and strict adherence to FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) data practices. This approach ensures that cultural heritage institutions maintain control over their data while actively contributing to a shared, collaborative ecosystem. Key components of the strategy include: Technical Architecture: A detailed design for the Knowledge Base (KB), comprising distributed and federated triplestores (with both public and private content), an administrative repository, REST APIs, and user interfaces to facilitate data ingestion, management, and querying. Governance & Lifecycle: A robust governance model defining roles, responsibilities, and policies for secure, ethical, and compliant data sharing, covering the entire data lifecycle from raw acquisition to interpreted knowledge. Strategic Alignment: Direct support for ECHOES's core objectives, particularly enabling a sustainable legal entity (SO2), integrating diverse outcomes, from past, present and future projects (SO4), and fostering collaborative knowledge co-creation around Digital Commons (SO5). This deliverable defines the functional and non-functional requirements for the system, illustrated through user personas and operational use cases. It also establishes mechanisms for monitoring, evaluation, and quality assurance to ensure the infrastructure meets its goals. Crucially, this Data Strategy lays the essential groundwork for the subsequent deliverable "D6.2 Interoperability Requirements and Guidelines," which will expand upon this design to support advanced features such as distributed computing, automated annotation, and integration with Cascading Grants and Vertical Applications. This document is a critical step in realizing the vision of a unified, open, and sustainable European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage (ECCCH).