The value of Europeana

In 2008, Europeana was launched as a service platform for digital cultural heritage and content from libraries, archives, galleries and museums from all over the European Union. The aim was to make Europe’s rich cultural heritage accessible for all. Since its launch, the number of records in the Europeana database, of Europeana Network members and of visitors to its website have grown rapidly.

At the end of 2014, project funding that supports Europeana provided under the ICT-PSP programme by the European Union will end. The aim is that this will be replaced by a more sustainable funding model under the new multi-annual framework, Connecting Europe Facility. Discontinuation of EU funding would mean that the Europeana Foundation would have to abandon its investments. As part of a proposal for continued funding in the years 2015-2020, Europeana has asked Atlas voor gemeenten and SEO Economic Research to assess the social-economic value of this investment. Hence the research question this report aims to answer:

This report presents the result of this assessment. Cost estimates are based on Europeana’s Strategic Business Plan 2015-2020 (v0.7) and amount to a net present value of € 57.3 million per 1-1-2015 (using a real discount rate of 5.5 %). This includes necessary funds to maintain the current network of partners.