European Digital Treasures: A Project to Address the European Archives’ Challenges

The project “European Digital Treasures: Management of centennial archives in the 21st century” ran between October 2018 and January 2023. A consortium of seven partners from seven countries sought to understand the challenges being faced by European archives and develop appropriate responses in this project, co-funded by the European Union (EU) through the Creative Europe programme, the EU framework programme for the cultural and audio-visual sectors. Five state archives, an international network and a technological university developed, and tested activities aimed at addressing the lack of economic profitability of archives, their difficulties to share their holdings and the barriers that still exist between archives and society. In this article the authors, coming from three participating national archives, discuss the work carried out to identify the current challenges and opportunities of European archives as well as the activities developed and carried out. They conclude by sharing some reflections on their experiences and the lessons learned during this undertaking.