Research into one shared interactive digital space for the cultural sector

DEN is the driving force behind digital transformation in the cultural sector, and does this by encouraging innovation, offering knowledge and tools, promoting collaboration, and organizing training. This makes digital transformation manageable so that cultural professionals can start working with it themselves.

Additionally, DEN is active across the sector in further developing the environment – the ecosystem – of cultural organizations to stimulate the process of digital transformation. According to DEN, part of the developed ecosystem could be the design of one digital interactive space where culture and the public come together.

“From the DEN scenario study for the ‘Audience of the Future,’ it becomes clear how essential the digital and hybrid infrastructure is for creating, finding, engaging, and experiencing culture in the future. More and more cultural institutions and creators are initiating a digital transformation. To do this successfully, an institution also needs an environment that encourages and advances this fundamentally different way of working,” says Maaike Verberk, director of DEN.

Initial Exploration

To investigate one shared interactive digital space, DEN has started an initial exploration by consulting experts from inside and outside the sector. This initial exploration consists of three components:

1. A study by TNO commissioned by DEN for perspectives and insights into one digital interactive space.
2. An extensive scenario study by DEN for the ‘Audience of the Future.’
3. Insights gained by DEN from intensive contacts with digital pioneers in the sector.

The conclusions of this broad initial exploration can be found in DEN’s report ‘Research into one shared digital space for cultural offerings and audiences.’

What’s next?

Currently, DEN is conducting two more explorations:

1. Together with Playgrounds, the platform for creators in animation, gaming, and film, the possibilities of ‘online interaction with creators and audiences’ are being tested.
2. Together with Motivaction, a public study (qualitative and quantitative) is being conducted into the need for and experience of culture in a digital space.

Subsequently, DEN will create a qualitative overview of relevant, existing digital spaces where cultural offerings and audiences come together, in the Netherlands and internationally, to determine the success factors. Based on the results, DEN will consult with parties that already have experience in showcasing cultural offerings in their own digital space to explore how one shared interactive digital space can be designed in the Netherlands.

Based on this, DEN will determine the next steps so that by mid-2024 it becomes clear what is necessary to organize this for the Dutch cultural sector.

Recommended for further reading 

• Opinion: The digital divide in the cultural sector calls for an adaptive ecosystem