The week started with the launch of the 3DBigDataSpace project on 17–18 February 2025. Funded by the Digital Europe Programme and coordinated by the Time Machine Organisation, 3DBigDataSpace aims to enhance the European Data Space for Cultural Heritage by aggregating, enriching, and improving access to high-quality 3D content. The kickoff meeting provided an opportunity for partners to get together to discuss the project's goals, plan activities in the months ahead and coordinate technical developments.

3DBigDataSpace will run for 18 months and seeks to advance 3D cultural heritage preservation, education, and digital tourism through innovative storage solutions, AI enrichment, and visualization tools. CARARE's role is as a sub-contractor to support aggregation of 3D content to the Data Space.

Next the 3D-4CH project had its first general meeting from 18–20 February. Also funded by the Digital Europe Programme, 3D-4CH is coordinated by INCEPTION. The meeting brought together the consortium partners, members of the advisory board and key stakeholders. It provided an opportunity for the partners to review the work plan - there were some lively discussions about training and capacity building in particular. CARARE's is a full partner and is leader of the work package on training and capacity building.

In addition to the internal project meeting, there was a public session on the 19th February which was live-streamed on YouTube. This session presented a valuable opportunity to engage with significant European initiatives, such as the Common Data Space for Cultural Heritage and the European Cloud for Heritage Open Science. You can access the programme and the recording of the public session by clicking here.

On the 20-21 February, the XRCulture project was launched. With funding by the Digital Europe Programme, XRCulture is also coordinated by INCEPTION. It aims to establish best practices for the adoption of 3D, AI and XR technologies and to accelerate the digital transformation of cultural heritage institutions. Despite being the third kick-off meeting of the week, with some organisations participating in all 3 ground-breaking projects, there was plenty of lively discussion among the participants there in person and online.

CARARE's role is as a sub-contractor to bring its expertise in metadata for 3D, the Share3D metadata capture tool and to support aggregation of 3D content to the Data Space.