EdReNe Strategy meeting, Copenhagen Andrew Kitchen – Senior Architect, Becta 7 th October, 2010 Europeana for Learning proposal

Europeana for Learning Aspects to cover… o What was the opportunity? o Why bid? o The risks! o What was in the proposal? o Why it didn’t win the approval required to proceed….this time.

What was the opportunity? The generic opportunity: o CIP ICT PSP call 4 o Significant funding ~30m Euros for the Digital Libraries initiative o Enhancing/Aggregating content for Europeana o A best practice network

What was (is) the opportunity for EdReNe/Europeana? o Bring EdReNe expertise to Europeana for the repurposing of their content within the learning society o A real focus and direction for pan-European cultural content within Education o Enable Europeana resources to be actively used by teachers and learners o A vehicle for continuing the highly valuable EdReNe network in the future o Gives EdReNe an expanded horizon with repositories outside traditional education

Why bid? A combination of reasons: o Why not? o There was a time window to respond to the call that could be made, even if that window was tight o Things are more difficult to do without monetary backing, so any opportunity that provided funding needs to be grasped o EdReNe funding had just ended o Current financial circumstances will unfortunately mean some organisations can no longer come to an unfunded EdReNe meeting schedule

The risks! Why the proposal submitted may fail to attract funding: o Scope – there was a severe risk that the proposed work was not ‘aggregating/enhancing’ Europeana in the way the European Commission envisaged… o Time – everything was written in the space of about 5 days… o Quality – everything associated with turning around a 100+ page proposal in 5 days…

What was in the proposal? The basics: o A ‘Best Practice Network’, by definition o 3 years o 13 partners o Led by the Collections Trust (UK Europeana aggregation lead) o 7 work packages (1 project management, 3 content enhancement, 2 strategy and user alignment, 1 wider engagement and advocacy)

The aims and objectives of the proposal (1) o Work with identified scientific heritage resource providers to aggregate their content into Europeana o Provide support and advisory services to help a wider range of content sources contribute to Europeana o Proactively seek to align national and European policy for cultural content and the learning society o Develop an EfL Commons to support commercial & non-commercial use of Europeana content for learning

The aims and objectives of the proposal (2) o Provide facilities & tools which enhance Europeana content for use by the learning society o Produce validated scenarios and use cases for the use of Europeana content for learning o Engage with established national and European networks and communities of practice o Develop models and approaches to promote the sustainability of these outcomes

Why it didn’t win the approval required to proceed….this time. Why the proposal submitted may fail to attract funding: o Scope – the severe risk was well predicted and realised! o Positive about the overall concept just not in scope…. o Various comments surrounding IPR/licensing of the content and the approach to project management. o Evaluator was ‘unsure’ of the potential to secure the content detailed within the proposal.

Why we have reason to be confident at the next opportunity. o The commission were positive and constructive about the proposal’s concept. o We knew all along that this proposal was put together in a rush and that a future opportunity would be more effectively written. o Europeana are keen to ensure their content is used! o The learning society is the ideal place for their content to be used in anger. o Future calls will be more aligned to what was being proposed and therefore the severe risk will vanish….

Contact… Andrew Kitchen Becta Millburn Hill Road Science Park Coventry CV4 7JJ T+44 (0) F+44 (0)