Press Release: ARXIVE, Harnessing AI to Preserve, Celebrate, and Share Europe’s Cultural Heritage
ARXIVE Officially Launches as Part of the Cultural Heritage Cloud to Revolutionize European Cultural Heritage Documentation
Hannover [13/01/2026] – A new European initiative, ARXIVE, is set to revolutionize how cultural heritage is documented, preserved, and shared across Europe. Leveraging cutting-edge artificial intelligence, ARXIVE empowers cultural heritage professionals, researchers, and communities to safeguard Europe’s rich and diverse cultural legacy while making it accessible to all.
Cultural heritage is not only about preserving the past. It shapes our collective identity, inspires creativity, and strengthens societal cohesion. ARXIVE addresses these challenges by creating an open, dynamic, and inclusive tools and methodologies where tangible artifacts and intangible narratives coexist, enabling innovative ways to explore and understand Europe’s cultural landscape.
From archaeologists to museum curators, and from educators to local communities, ARXIVE places people at the center of its mission. AI-powered tools help professionals capture and annotate cultural heritage objects, while interactive visualizations allow citizens to engage directly with Europe’s shared history. The project also emphasizes fairness, transparency, and inclusivity, ensuring that cultural knowledge is available to everyone, everywhere.
Through partnerships across multiple European countries, ARXIVE is building a vibrant ecosystem of cultural institutions, researchers, and tech innovators, fostering collaboration, co-creation, and shared ownership of Europe’s heritage. The initiative not only strengthens research capabilities but also supports cultural education, lifelong learning, and public engagement.
“Cultural heritage is a living dialogue between the past and the future,” Alexandra Garatzogianni, ARXIVE Coordinator. “With ARXIVE, we are creating tools that not only preserve this dialogue but actively invite professionals, communities, and citizens to participate in it, ensuring Europe’s heritage remains vibrant, accessible, and meaningful for generations to come. Through our pilots and FSTP programme, innovation moves beyond theory, allowing us to work hand-in-hand with museums, universities, and local communities to co-design practical, inclusive, and sustainable solutions.”
ARXIVE’s outcomes will contribute to a Europe where cultural heritage is a driver of innovation, social cohesion, and identity, supporting the EU’s vision for sustainable, inclusive, and future-ready cultural sectors. The project embodies a new era where technology and tradition come together to enrich both knowledge and experience, ensuring that Europe’s stories are preserved and celebrated by all.
Consortium:
Leibniz Universität Hannover (LUH) coordinates the ARXIVE project, leading strategic management and ensuring the integration of interoperable, standards-based digital heritage solutions that align with Europe’s cultural heritage cloud ecosystem.
Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH) drives the development of ARXIVE’s semantic framework for historical and cultural knowledge representation, enabling collaborative and multilingual content reuse across contexts.
Fraunhofer FIT enhances ARXIVE’s infrastructure by integrating ontologies, promoting FAIR data management, and deploying AI-powered features to improve data quality, user experience, and interoperability.
Open Knowledge Foundation Greece (OKFGR) supports the integration of ARXIVE tools within the European cultural heritage ecosystem, contributing to open knowledge, training, and stakeholder engagement.
INOVA+ leads ARXIVE’s pilot testing and communication efforts, ensuring the project’s tools are effectively validated, widely adopted, and designed for long-term sustainability and impact.
Eurecat applies expertise in computational social science, trustworthy AI, and advanced machine learning to improve ARXIVE’s usability, semantic interoperability, and intelligent user support systems.
The National Library of Greece (NLG) leverages its expertise in preservation and digitization to support ARXIVE’s tool development and metadata standards, ensuring alignment with international cultural heritage practices.
Museums and Monuments of Portugal (MMP) provides real-world datasets and pilot environments to validate ARXIVE’s tools, ensuring interoperability, usability, and sustainable adoption within the museum sector.
VILABS OE leads the establishment of stakeholder hubs across five countries, focusing on ethical research, inclusivity, sustainability planning, and impact assessment for the ARXIVE project.
For more information, visit https://arxive-eccch.eu/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/arxive-eccch/
Contact:
Alexandra Garatzogianni, ARXIVE Coordinator
Alexandra.Garatzogianni@tib.eu
Michael Fribus, ARXIVE Coordinator Deputy Michael.Fribus@gmail.com
Inês Francisco, Communications Lead, ARXIVE / INOVA
ines.francisco@inova.business