Our autumn convention is approaching and with the full programme available now, we encourage you (if not done so yet) to sign up for this spectacular event in Venice next week. If the prospect of meeting up with the ICARUS community isn't motivation enough, then the location, the State Archives of Venice situated in the historic premises of a former Franciscan convent in the very heart of La Serenissima, should win you over!

In addition to a great number of interesting presentations, there are some other highlights to look forward to:

• ICARUS and our friends’ association, ICARUS4all, will hold their annual general assemblies as hybrid events on Wednesday, 12 November (around noon). Separate invitations have been issued already.
• In planning the convention, we were lucky to collaborate also with the colleagues from the Venice Centre for Digital and Public Humanities (VeDPH) at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice who organised the lecture of Dominique Stutzmann (IRHT-CNRS/FR) as part of the Centre’s ongoing seminar series (read more here). With the topic “Archival Studies and AI”, we hope to encourage local students and academics to engage with our archival community.
• To accommodate interested participants from all over Europe and beyond, our hosts have arranged live streaming of the sessions in the main hall, the historic winter refectory (refettoria d’inverno).
• The programme for the second day, Thursday 13 November, is split into two parallel sessions. While the lectures continue in the main hall (live streamed), the parallel sessions are specifically tailored to live interactions on site. In the morning, you can learn about the latest achievements relating to the project “DiDip – From Digital to Distant Diplomatics” and their work on “Monasterium Next Generation”.
• Especially for our Italian-speaking colleagues, Antonella Ambrosio and Thomas Aigner will lead a workshop dedicated to the ICARUS platforms Monasterium and Matricula (M&M), introducing the named platforms to the participants and discussing joint engagement opportunities.
• As has been our tradition since the beginning, we will, of course, have a soccer match (Thursday afternoon) to stretch our legs after a long day and engage in some friendly competition on the court.
• To round off the event, a guided tour of the State Archive will be offered on Friday at noon.

We hope to see you in Venice next - so don't forget to register now! 

As part of the activities of ECHOES, the project community behind the European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage (ECCCH), regular calls for projects to feed into the Cloud are launched. Currently there is an open call, aiming to award almost 30.000 Euros per project, that:

• Involve Cultural Heritage Institutions (CHIs) working with tangible and/or intangible heritage
• Raise awareness of the ECCCH and expand its community
• Support skills development and capacity building, especially for small and medium-sized CHIs

Projects are expected to have a wide geographical reach and engage a significant number of CHIs. Alongside communication activities, they may also include:

• Digital or in-person workshops, webinars, and online courses
• Training materials (guidelines, toolkits, manuals)
• Informational events on ECCCH benefits
• Surveys to identify sector challenges and opportunities
• Helpdesks providing tailored support and feedback
• Creative engagement formats such as hackathons, co-design, or co-creation sessions

There will be an online INFO DAY on 6 November 2025. So, if you wish to learn more, please register here.

Within this frame, allow us to forward our partner APEF’s (Archives Portal Europe Foundation) invitation to connect with them. They cannot participate in the grant directly, but would be happy to support any application coming from their network, content providers, country managers, aggregators, ambassadors, etc. If you are interested in participating and have a project in mind, please answer this short questionnaire to organise a quick APE meeting about possible projects to submit.

Our partner Time Machine Organisation (TMO) is offering a new grant for projects to support new and creative uses of 3D cultural heritage data and tools as part of the current Digital Europe project “3DBigDataSpace” Participants will also have the chance to explore the innovative tools developed by the project consortium: the Rooom XR Viewer, PCSS (DLibra) 3DViewer, and the 4D Viewer by the University of Jena.

To get to know more about above named tools, the grant and the application process etc, TMO is hosting an online Q&A session on 17 November 2025 (13:00-14:00 CET) – feel free to register here.