The 4th Interim Meeting of the project partners was held recently as a hybrid event in Florence and on Zoom. After 18 months, everything is progressing well as described by each of the Work Package leaders for their specific activities. 4CH is having to extend its scope to accommodate the most recent digital initiatives announced by the Commission and other factors such as the pandemic and war in Ukraine. Prof. Franco Niccolucci, the 4CH Technical Director, elegantly summarised the challenges and their impact in his overview:

  1. COVID which has changed the way we are working with advantages.
  2. New EU strategies on CH digitisation: EU 11/2021 Recommendation on CH digitization, launch of the Data Space for CH and advanced plans for the ECCCH.
  3. The war in Ukraine which resulted in SUM.
  4. Digitisation initiatives at country level, supported by NextGeneration EU funds.

4CH fits well with the new EU strategies and initiatives and must adapt to take account of new organisational and legal forms as well as some minor changes to documentation and training. The greatest impact is on the technology since this will have to eventually support the whole range of digitisation activities, including some not considered in the initial plans. The planned Knowledge Base and ontology will also have to cover a much broader domain.

Another exciting announcement was the imminent establishment of the first Competence Centre in Italy with the agreement due to be signed in the Autumn. Everyone was encouraged to keep up the good work, especially as 4CH is laying the groundwork for similar initiatives to set up Competence Centres for other domains.