Funding programme

Horizon Europe is the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation. Cluster 2 aims to strengthen European democratic values, including rule of law and fundamental rights, safeguarding cultural heritage, and promoting socio-economic transformations that contribute to inclusion and growth.

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Call overview

This call targets the development of in-depth, evidence-based insights into how artificial intelligence is reshaping Cultural and Creative Industries (CCI).

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Expected Outcome

Projects should contribute to at least three of the following expected outcomes:

• Policy makers, Cultural and Creative Industries (CCI)^[1] and other stakeholders gain insights into the impact of AI, including, but not limited to, generative AI, on artists, creatives, cultural professionals, creative businesses and on the market for cultural and creative goods and services, as well as on the future of creative work.
• Policy makers, research (including SSH disciplines), education, industry, and society benefit from robust, evidence-based policy recommendations and concrete solutions promoting a mutually beneficial interplay between CCI and AI. These policy recommendations and solutions aim for a fairer marketplace that fosters transparency, fairness, non-discrimination, diversity, and accountability by design, while respecting artistic freedom.
• Policy makers, the CCI, and stakeholders are provided with case studies and evidence-based policy recommendations to harness the CCI’ potential for AI innovation and promote human-centric, unbiased AI applications.
• Frameworks, protocols, and tools for managing intellectual property and personality rights in AI development, training, and use, addressing unauthorised data use and legal breaches, are available to CCI and public authorities.
• Mechanisms or platforms, such as CCI-led competence centres or hubs, are proposed to facilitate interaction among artists, creatives, AI specialists, cultural institutions, and creative businesses. These will facilitate the sharing of knowledge and experiences on AI-powered innovations and aim to develop new solutions that serve the needs of the CCI and society at large, ultimately enhancing creativity-driven innovation.

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Scope

The rapid development and deployment of artificial intelligence are increasingly permeating and transforming economy and society, notably impacting the diverse and dynamic domains of the CCI which, notably, are predominantly composed of SMEs. This transformation offers significant opportunities for innovation, within the CCI and in the economy and society at large, and poses challenges including bias, ethical dilemmas, employment shifts, skills need, and issues related to data access, transparency, preservation of cultural diversity and respect for creators’ rights.

To foster a culture- and creativity-driven European innovation ecosystem, it’s crucial to understand and address these impacts, build capacity to steer development, anticipate consequences, and prepare the CCI with the necessary skills to thrive in the new scenario. Enhancing the capabilities of the CCI in this rapidly evolving landscape increases innovation potential at the intersection of technology, arts, culture, and society.

Initiatives at the crossroads between art, technology, science, and society, such as the EU’s STARTS – Science, Technology, and the Arts – demonstrate the advantages of involving artists and creative professionals to advance innovation and develop technologies that resonate with individuals and reflect cultural diversity. Artistic skills like intuition, imagination, and creativity, which are challenging for AI to replicate, along with expertise in design, visualisation, storytelling, to mention just a few, provide fresh ideas and unique insights for creating human-centric AI tools that address specific challenges and are designed to be ethical, sustainable, trustworthy, culturally sensitive and enhance user experience.

To address the multifaceted intertwining between AI and the CCI, and to foster a sustainable, innovative environment, the following areas could contribute to this topic’s expected outcomes:

• Explore the impact of AI - including generative AI, and emerging AI systems - on CCI markets and audiences, ranging from individual artists and creators to processes, services, products, and consumer interactions.
• Investigate AI’s current and potential applications within CCI that enhance creativity, innovation, and competitiveness.
• Focus on AI integration in those cultural and creative industries where it is most disruptive or most needed to optimise processes and reap business opportunities, identifying key risks, changes in employment and job profiles, and the need for upskilling, reskilling, and capacity building.
• Develop a sound understanding of how the intersection of CCI and AI can drive innovation both within the CCI and across other sectors, promoting business processes that respect and promote cultural diversity, foster the discoverability of European content and protect and reward human creativity.
• Investigate the underexplored potential of creativity and the arts to engage with AI developments and collaborate with AI specialists and third parties when appropriate. This can aim to design trustworthy, ethical, user-friendly intelligent systems that meet people's needs, enhance user experience, safeguard cultural diversity, address biases (including biases towards gender, sex, age, race or ethnicity, sexual orientation, and migrant status) boost CCI’s competitiveness, and promote societal adoption of AI.
• Develop pilots, guidance, and innovative toolkits, including use cases, checklists, and algorithms, addressing CCI needs and values, cultural diversity, and the protection of intellectual property rights, including copyright and related rights.
• Facilitate interaction among artists and creatives, AI developers, cultural institutions, creative businesses, and third parties as appropriate, to promote knowledge transfer and enhance AI-powered innovation in CCI.
• Provide mechanisms or platforms for collaborations, peer learning, and knowledge sharing to build capacity and foster creativity-led innovation, while integrating humanistic perspectives into AI through dialogues that blend creativity and the arts with AI communities within research, policy, and practice.
• Assess the role cultural organisations can play in training AI systems in their areas of competence to represent multilingualism and cultural diversity in digital environments and to foster accessibility, and the extent to which AI contributes to their value creation, enhancing traditional methods and practices and personalising engagement with their public.
• Devise strategic recommendations for policies and practices that foster a mutually beneficial relationship between AI and CCI, propose fair rights management solutions and address employment, skills, and innovation challenges.

Proposals should involve from the outset representatives from the CCI, including the arts and cultural heritage, to ensure their central role in activity development. Proposals need not cover all CCI but may focus on a specific area for thorough analysis to develop a strong knowledge base and highlight strategic directions and routes to improvement.

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Eligibility

To be eligible for funding, applicants must be established in one of the following countries:

• the Member States of the European Union, including their outermost regions;
• the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) linked to the Member States;
• countries associated to Horizon Europe;
• low- and middle-income countries.

See specifics in the General Annexes document, page 9.

If projects use satellite-based earth observation, positioning, navigationand/or related timing data and services, beneficiaries must make use ofCopernicus and/or Galileo/EGNOS (other data and services mayadditionally be used).

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Consortium composition

Only legal entities forming a consortium are eligible to participate in actions provided that the consortium includes, as beneficiaries, three legal entities independent from each other and each established in a different country as follows:

• at least one independent legal entity established in a Member State; and
• at least two other independent legal entities, each established in different Member States or Associated Countries.

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Budget

The total indicative budget for the topic is EUR 26.00 million.

Beneficiaries may provide financial support to third parties to cultural heritage institutions, in take-up of tools, technologies and for populatingand validating the relevant use cases through experiments. A maximum of 15% of the budget may be dedicated to financial support to third parties. The maximum amount to be granted to each third party is EUR 60 000.