Context/backgroundIn the COVID-19 crisis it is obvious that the cultural and creative sector is one of those severely hit in Europe (cf. European Commission’s Coronavirus Response Investment Initiative, October 8, 2020). What the current crisis brought sharply to the forefront is the very limited resilience of the cultural and creative sector to the unprecedented change in human and cultural habits that are mostly connected to face-to-face encounters, visits and performances. The European Union has set a roadmap for action on the pan-European level but there is still lots to be done on the local, national and cross-national levels to support the rebirth of the sector. Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAMs) were for the majority unprepared regarding the effects of the pandemic, including a sudden loss of income (which definitely impacted the employment rates in the cultural and creative sectors), as well as a severe disruption of their relationship with their audiences. Since the beginning of the pandemic, these effects have managed to further damage this sector which was already struggling with poor community outreach over the past decade.Yet, civic participation against COVID-19 flourished in the form of bottom-up, community-driven initiatives for a social purpose in Europe, such as hackathons, youth activism for disadvantaged populations, 3D artifacts for citizens in need and crowdfunding initiatives. Many young people followed remotely digital activities organised by GLAMs in an attempt to support them and demonstrate solidarity with the cultural and creative sectors. These practices illustrate the fact that citizens, and more specifically youth communities, are prepared to take a more active role in the support of the cultural/creative sector, should this sector offer more activities that engage the public in creative, enticing initiatives that contribute to better societies through civic empowerment. ObjectivesThe GLAMers project has 4 objectives, each one addressed by an Output (O). Τhe first objective is to provide a collection of use cases emphasizing youth engagement as a means of GLAM recovery during the COVID-19 pandemic. This collection will be enriched with an analysis of challenges, opportunities and hidden potential of youth engagement in GLAM rebirth (IO1).The second objective is to build on O1 results and create an open access digital collection of at least 30 digital resources, plus a 5-module online training suite and 8 webinars for GLAMs and youth organisations. These training sessions will be of national and pan-European reach as they will be carried out in English and in partner languages (IO2).The third objective is to allow GLAMs put in practice knowledge acquired in O2 by organizing real events at their premises where youth (young individuals and youth communities) will have a vital role. At least 5 events will take place across Europe. They all be held according to the local public health regulations for COVID-19 at that given moment. Thus, GLAMs will benefit from counselling by project partners to first carry out and then assess the digitally enhanced activities involving youth at their premises. Implementation and assessment tools will be part of the methodology that will be developed to support GLAMs during these stages (IO3).The fourth objective is to map social change. The GLAMers will demonstrate how youth communities can be part of the solution to the current COVID-19 crisis through their active participation in cultural events that both help GLAMs recover and also contribute to community efforts to face the current pandemic. This will be showcased through live-streaming events at the premises of GLAMs, a series of Do’s and Don’ts video-interviews and at least 20 attractive infographics (IO4). Target groupsThe GLAMers embrace a wide spectrum of stakeholders. The target groups are, first, Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAMs), and the cultural and creative sector in general; and second, youth organisations and young persons. The project will embrace all forms of youth participation to allow a multifaceted set of solutions to emerge in the current crisis, namely:1. cultural youth associations;2. young artists; 3. young activist groups for social change;4. young individuals, not belonging to a group or a community, wishing to be part of coordinated action towards a reinforced European identity.PartnershipThe consortium is composed of partners with complementary profiles: one University (Cyprus University of Technology), one NGO addressing youth communities (Citizens in Power), an SME on open and social learning (Web2Learn), a museum of national reach (Museum of Arts and Crafts) and a pan-European network of cultural organisations (Michael Culture Association). The partnership is well balanced geographically (CY, HR, GR) and MCA which, while located in BE, has a pan-European reach.

The last decades have witnessed a variety of initiatives promoted by a diverse set of actors engaged in the protection of endangered cultural heritage and in stopping illicit trade, initiatives that have tried to bring solutions, remediation, methods and approaches to tackle looting and trafficking. NETCHER seeks to address the complex challenge of harmonising and bringing together these worthy, but often disconnected initiatives by using a participative approach that will result in the establishment of a structured network (defined as a Social Platform) drawing together a broad range of players such as international bodies, umbrella organizations, national governments, researchers, public policy makers, NGOs, as well as public and private foundations. In light of the significance of these uncoordinated efforts, the Platform will take charge of the systematizing and framing of all the emerging best practices in order to enhance and capitalize on the experiences of the partnership members at an international level for building a joint action plan with shared toolkits and a research and innovation roadmap.

"<< Background >>The NETCHER project (https://netcher.eu/), started in January 2019 and concluded in March 2021, was aimed at reinforcing the fight against cultural heritage looting and trafficking, by bringing together relevant international actors (security and research communities, public and private institutions, art market specialists, policy makers), to build a sustainable social online platform. With the objective of paving the way to further initiatives, NETCHER issued a set of recommendations, addressing all the different communities of stakeholders. They underline the importance to create reliable, comprehensive and accessible information, on which the efficiency of education and awareness processes relies.The Final Forum of NETCHER, organised on 1-2 March 2021, has also underlined the need to extend its activities to a wider audience, also involving the educational sector and the general public, since the dimension of the challenge requires a wider intervention, involving all the citizens from their early age. In the final round table, representatives of five Directorates-General of the European Commission - also including DG EAC for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture - were requested to comment the recommendations issued by the NETCHER project and highlighted the policy issues from different perspectives. They all agreed that a strong interaction among the educational sector and the key actors involved in looting and trafficking is necessary, with a strong focus on cultural institutions. Archaeological sites and museums are mostly concerned, but any kind of cultural institutions are touched by this severe issue.The present PITCHER project is the first action started to put into practice this strategy, trying to respond to the needs (often not clearly identified yet) of the educational sectors in front of this key problem. Its solution is not involving only a few numbers of police forces, researchers and cultural bodies, but needs the collaboration of all the citizens, starting from the youngsters. It is crucial to make them aware that cultural and archaeological heritage is essential to our understanding of mankind, our history, who we are and where we come from. Taking away the study of these objects from specialists is the same as irreversibly destroying a part of our past.<< Objectives >>The project intends to propose a new model for addressing young people about the problem of fighting the looting and illicit trafficking of cultural goods, focusing on school teachers, in order to raise their awareness and enhance their professional development in this field. This will be done by: - enhancing schools with new models for increasing the knowledge of students, as well as use educational scheme for acquiring the critical thinking necessary to play an effective role in tackling this problem, as a young citizen and as an adult; - creating prototypes of innovative tools based on STEAM Education (i.e. a combination of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) as an access points for guiding student inquiry, dialogue, and critical thinking; - using the educational potential present in the European cultural institutions (archeological sites, museums, libraries, etc.) to support teachers in the development of lessons and workshops aiming at demonstrating the intercultural dimension of the problem. It is a matter of fact that ""creativity"", for born digital youngsters, is strictly associated to the use of IT devices, that are their main tool for communicating and exchanging feelings, emotions and passions. This is why the presence of the ""makers"", the digital artists, can support this action, since they well know the potential of the use of technology and can support the development of educational resources to stimulate creativity. It is important to remember that the word ""poet"" comes from the Greek verb ""poieo - ποιέω"", that means ""to make"". This approach well justify the organization of training events where the partners are working together with creative artists and cultural institutions for jointly designing new educational tools based also on gamification and escape games, enhanced reality, and real-time interaction with the students. In this way, the project will enable all the students to express their culture and ideas, while providing opportunities for the acquisition of necessary skills and know-how to participate in wider cultural developments. The general objective of the proposal consists then of the design and test of a set of open educational resources, to be made available also online, focusing on improving the educators’ capacity in preparing new learning experiences to support the fight against looting and illicit trafficking of cultural goods, thanks to the rich repositories of digital cultural heritage accessible through the web.<< Implementation >>The activities are organised according to the following main phases: Phase 1: COMMON FRAMEWORK AND METHODOLOGY (M1-12) During this phase partners will build a common framework and work methodology by analysing existing good practices and initiatives. This includes the identification of case studies and interviews with stakeholders and key actors. Focus group can be organised in the partner countries with relevant local stakeholders to share and validate the results of this phase. The existing potential available in European digital collections of cultural heritage will be analyzed, to identify and select the most effective materials to be made available to the European schools. Phase 2: DEVELOPMENT & TESTING (M13-M32) During this second phase, partners will develop the Open Educational Resources (OERs). The courses and the related educational materials will be prepared in English in the first version, and they will be translated (if necessary) and tested in the partner countries. Teachers and students, but also citizens, will be involved in the pilot action. Thanks to the feedback received from the participants to the pilot actions, the OERs will be revised and fine-tuned. Evaluation activities will be boosted in this phase to support the testing with the collection and analysis of adequate data. Phase 3: MODELING AND RECOMMENDATION (M29-M36) Based on the results of the test phase, the training materials will be revised and improved and enriched with additional materials. During this phase, partners will work together in order to create a model of intervention and a series of guidelines and recommendations for drafting a document paving the way to a mass use of the training model and resources at local, regional or even national level. Also, the project foresees 6 transnational partners meetings, and 6 multiplier events.<< Results >>PITCHER will develop scenarios that advance the concept of 'open schooling' by building clusters of stakeholders around a creative and critical engagement of youngsters in the fight against looting and trafficking of cultural goods, also involving – as a secondary target group – museum educators, memory institutions and other organisations involved in informal and non-formal educational places, such as community centers, services for youth, young offenders. Through its results: 1: Methods to include a creative and critical thinking approach in education, supporting the fight against illicit trafficking of cultural goods; 2: Design and test of the Open Educational Resources; 3: Guidelines and recommendations for mass use of the training model and resources,PITCHER will create a set of OERs able to help EU teachers in implementing creative ways to involve young generation in this dramatic problem with the help of the educational potential of European cultural institutions. Themes covered in the materials and tools will also include themes of intercultural reflection, values; and identity(ies); dialogue and dialogical relationships; EU values and critical thinking."

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, in an increasingly complex world children need to develop higher level thinking skills in order to find solutions to social, emotional and economic problems, both personally and in the context of the wider world. In order to respond to the challenges of the 21st century, children need to be creative, innovative, enterprising and adaptable, with the motivation, confidence and skills to use creative and critical thinking purposefully. The Creative School project responds to this need by delivering creative and critical thinking educational approaches into schools through engagement with the cultural sector, specifically museums, galleries, and science centres.The Creative School builds on the outcomes of two previous Erasmus+ funded projects: The Creative Museum (2014-1-FR01-KA202- 008678) and the Making Museum (2017-1-FR01-KA202- 037487), by providing opportunities to generate and evaluate knowledge, clarify concepts and ideas, seek possibilities, consider alternatives and solve problems. The Creative School project aims to use the creative and innovative methods and tools developed throughout the Creative and Making Museum projects and apply them to develop learning modules for children and school teachers. These modules will promote self-directed learning, critical and visual thinking skills by using cultural heritage content made available by the full and associate partner organisations. The project will achieve this in a number of ways: firstly, through an analysis of training and information needs of teachers, educators, children and also parents; secondly, by producing a set of training materials focusing on the development of thinking skills through engagement with cultural heritage and thirdly, through the creation set of guidelines and recommendations aimed at influencing policy makers and curriculum decision makers. The main beneficiaries of the project include primary and secondary school teachers, who, through engaging with the project will become equipped with the skills necessary to facilitate pedagogical strategies for creativity and critical thinking. Children and young people involved as participants in the Creative School project will develop the skills required to respond to the challenges offered by the Creative School curriculum. The project will also explore the possible mobilisation of digital cultural heritage and engagement with maker spaces models, as tools to create unusual and exciting learning opportunities.Here maker spaces are intended as community-operated workspaces, where people with common interests in technology, science, heritage and art, can meet, socialize and collaborate.The project will provide teachers, educators and children the chance to engage with a wide range of subject matter and themes including innovation, STEAM (science, technology, arts and mathematics), sustainable development, urban regeneration, social innovation and entrepreneurship. The project brings together nine project partners from eight countries and six of the partners have worked together on the Making Museum and Creative Museum projects. The project partners all provide considerable expertise and knowledge in the subject area of innovation, creativity and critical thinking and with working with schools and young people. Project results will be disseminated through a range of international and national networks and support by a series of multiplier events, tailored to meet the needs of the local audience.

Advancements in digital transformation have enriched the interactive experience of cultural heritage. The adoption of digital technologies has benefited the development of virtual museum tours, preservation of cultural assets, digitised archives enabling broader and engaging means of access to cultural heritage. Despite critical advances, structural deficiencies remain: lack of accessibility for all; limited opportunities for all members of society to participate in cultural and creative industries on equal basis; and limited interoperable digital repositories for archiving accessible multisensory cultural assets and related archival structures. With one billion people experiencing some form of disability and one-fifth of these experiencing significant disabilities, access or opportunities to engage with cultural assets is not equally available to all. MuseIT aims to co-design, develop, and co-evaluate a multisensory, user-centred platform for enriched engagement with cultural assets with inclusion and equal opportunity for all as core principles. The MuseIT innovation is rooted in multisensory representations of cultural heritage which extend beyond the visual and auditory senses. More specifically, MuseIT will: a) co-design and develop multisensory representations and rendering of cultural assets, b) develop services for inclusive remote co-creation of multi-modal born-digital cultural assets, and c) develop formal specifications and strategies for inclusive archival preservation of cultural heritage. Participatory co-design activities will be integral to enable users with disabilities to be involved in decisions and designs that will affect their lives. Enriched experiences of cultural assets created by MuseIT will not be limited to this group and is likely to enhance the level of participation and enjoyment for all people. Impacts are likely to include the democratization of cultural asset experiences, and tangible growth in creative and cultural industries.