From Vision to Action: community building and engagement in ARTEMIS

The success of digital innovation in cultural heritage depends strongly on the extent to which communities of practice are actively involved, listened to, and empowered. The ARTEMIS project recognises community building as a foundational component of its mission to develop a Reactive Heritage Digital Twin framework (RHDT) for Europe’s cultural heritage. During its first year, ARTEMIS has emphasised understanding user needs, fostering dialogue across diverse stakeholder groups, and experimenting with new forms of communication and learning tailored to the heritage sector, positioning engagement not only as dissemination but as a structuring element of the project’s development process. ARTEMIS is a three-year, EU-funded research project involving 22 partners across 12 European countries. It proposes a shift from static digital representations towards dynamic, knowledge-driven systems that integrate heterogeneous cultural heritage data and support anticipatory analysis. Rather than reproducing heritage assets as isolated models or archives, the RHDT is conceived as an evolving digital environment capable of understanding context, simulating future scenarios, and supporting expert interpretation across conservation, research, and public engagement. A key milestone in the first year was a user needs survey addressing a wide spectrum of cultural heritage professionals across Europe. With 343 respondents across 33 countries, results reveal a digitally active but fragmented landscape: while respondents work with rich and diverse data, including images, texts, 3D models, scientific, and environmental data, unstructured formats, limited interoperability, and weak workflow integration constrain usability. Familiarity with advanced topics such as semantic modelling, simulations, and Digital Twins remains generally low, yet interest in training, particularly on integrative and scenario-based tools, is consistently high. Respondents also highlight a demand for accessible tools supporting interpretation and decision-making, and for training formats that are visual, modular, and usable by non-technical users, highlighting a gap between technological development and community readiness. These insights have informed the project’s training proposition and communication strategy, aligning technological development with community expectations. In parallel, ARTEMIS has evolved its communication approach. Moving beyond conventional dissemination, the first year marked a transition to a narrative-driven From Vision to Action campaign. The campaign foregrounds process, experimentation, and learning, presenting ARTEMIS as a collective journey. Within this framework, the project has explored unconventional communication formats, emphasising visual storytelling, evocative imagery, and accessible language to engage audiences beyond traditional research communities, thereby expanding participation beyond established expert groups. Central to this strategy are two flagship engagement initiatives. The ARTEMIS TALKS series has established a Europe-wide public forum where innovators, researchers, and practitioners discuss the future of cultural heritage and digital transformation, with recurring participation and interaction across different professional profiles. The ARTEMIS Learning Series has been developed as an open, modular learning resource with a strong focus on visual and video-based content. Short, accessible episodes address key themes in digital heritage, lowering entry barriers and supporting self-directed learning for diverse audiences. Together, these initiatives contribute to a participatory network in which community members engage through dialogue, training, and feedback loops that inform project activities. These initiatives respond to an emerging insight: effective digital heritage infrastructures must be inclusive and responsive to the needs of curators, conservators, educators, and local communities, and must actively support different levels of digital readiness. Early indicators, such as high levels of interest in training, willingness to engage in pilot activities, and sustained participation in online initiatives, suggest that these approaches are beginning to reach and activate broader communities. At the same time, challenges remain, including fragmented digital ecosystems, uneven skill levels, and the difficulty of translating engagement into sustained co-creation practices. Following these initiatives and the project’s first year research into its community, its communication strategy and community focus have paid off by the overwhelming response to the project’s first training school. ARTEMIS has attracted more than 140 applications across the globe for the ARTEMIS summer school in Hof an der Saale, Germany, a small university town in Upper Franconia. As the format can only serve 20 on-site participants, the communication and training strategy strives to retain engagement with those who cannot partake in person by not only expanding the learning series prior to the event but also by distributing further asynchronous learning materials that builds upon the training school and provides more training focussing on the tools, services and workflows developed within ARTEMIS. Finally, ARTEMIS has initiated real-world pilot studies across Europe, spanning mosaics, historic interiors, sculptures, vulnerable buildings, and landscapes. Co-developed with museums, municipalities, and research institutions, these pilots test how RHDTs can support conservation strategies, climate resilience, and evidence-based decision-making, while also providing environments for iterative interaction with stakeholders. By the end of its first year, ARTEMIS is building a participatory community that advances digital heritage innovation, demonstrating how engagement can act as an enabling layer for both technological development and knowledge exchange. Through the progressive establishment of this network, where training, dialogue, and feedback are integral, the project highlights that innovation in this domain is not only technological, but also social, requiring approaches that go beyond purely engineered solutions. It must instead be co-designed, demand-driven, and tested within real operational environments, ensuring that solutions respond to real needs and support effective uptake and long-term impact.