1. PLANETS - DP sustainability 1 PLANETS Workshop on Sustainable Models for Digital Preservation 29-30 Nov Brussels Carlos Oliveira (Deputy Head of Unit) Cultural Heritage and Technology Enhanced Learning Directorate Digital Content and Cognitive Systems DG Information Society and Media Luxembourg

2. PLANETS - DP sustainability 2

3. 3 Digital Content & Cognitive Systems new ways of creating, finding and understanding content how to make easier the access to and the use of content cross-border use of content (inc. multilinguality) Programmes: –RTD FP7-ICT –eContentPlus –SaferInternetPlus Initiatives: – Digital libraries – Scientific information – Public Sector Information

4. PLANETS - DP sustainability 4 Overview Why we care about sustainability of project’s outcomes Some of the issues Is there a solution?

5. PLANETS - DP sustainability 5 EC-funded research on ICT “(Europe’s) innovation performance is crucially dependent on strengthening investment in and the use of new technologies, particularly ICTs, by both the private and public sectors. Information and Communication technologies provide the backbone for the knowledge economy” “Working together for growth and jobs: A new start for the Lisbon Strategy”

6. PLANETS - DP sustainability 6 EC-funded RTD activities are clearly labelled as “pre- competitive” (i.e. distinct from product development), but The creation of favourable conditions for the exploitation of the results is a requirement –Plan for Use and Dissemination –Support activities aiming at assessing the suitability of the developed solutions Demonstrable impact beyond the funding period (and the Consortium members)

7. PLANETS - DP sustainability 7 Some of the issues Digital preservation is often presented as a typical example of a public good: –Benefits the whole community and particularly future (generations) users –Difficult to clearly identify who will be the actual users –Failure to do proper “digital preservation” will unavoidably result in a loss for the community –Taking care of “digital preservation” of the existing stock of collective memory is a costly operation (recurrent and increasing costs)

8. PLANETS - DP sustainability 8 Some of the issues An increasing amount of information is almost exclusively available in digital form, nonetheless It is vital guaranteeing that in the medium and long term: –it remains accessible and can be rendered in a suitable manner for the human senses –there is no significant risk of adulteration – i.e. authenticity and integrity is preserved

9. PLANETS - DP sustainability 9 Some of the issues An increasing number of information intensive services rely on the ability to access, explore, analyse, re-use historical informational resources: –Scientific and scholarly information in hard sciences as well as social sciences and humanities –Many added-value services (eg public sector information, social networking) This is a problem for many organisations in various sectors of activity: –E-government, financial sector, electronic publishing, engineering, research, etc.

10. PLANETS - DP sustainability 10 Some of the issues How different are the requirements of these potential partners? What are the implications in terms of product / service design? –Service / product / consulting –Generic solution vs customisable solution –How customisable –How costs determine pricing models –What to charge for these services / products –What is the role of public private partnerships

11. PLANETS - DP sustainability 11 Is there a solution? If “digital preservation” is: –Perceived as necessary by an increasing number of organisations –intrinsically complex and costly (i.e. requiring specialised knowledge) The ability to provide “digital preservation” services should be: –a valuable competence –offer good prospects of economic sustainability