Projects should contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• The cultural and creative sectors and industries (CCSI) have access to a dedicated European virtual AI support platform. This hub will facilitate collaboration among a strong and open network of CCSI networks, professionals, researchers, AI tech companies, creative startups, ethical AI experts, rights management infrastructures, other industries with a shared interest in the field of AI for culture and creativity and a focus on research and innovation.
• The AI4Creatives Support Platform provides easy access to shared services, expertise, capacity building, training, and tools needed to design, develop and adopt AI solutions tailored to cultural and creative processes and needs, enhancing innovation and competitiveness.
• Filling a gap, the platform enables the development and sharing of AI applications that adhere to EU values, principles and regulations, implementing transparency, ethical standards, promoting cultural diversity, addressing biases, and ensuring equitable access to culture and creativity.

Scope:

This topic addresses the pressing need to coordinate, support, disseminate and capitalise on relevant outcomes from Horizon Europe Cluster 2-funded projects aimed to equip CCSI to leverage the digital transformation, from other relevant Horizon Europe projects, and from initiatives exploring AI in relation to CCSI under other EU programmes, such as the AI Continent Action Plan, (including AI Factories, GenAI4EU, Apply AI and the envisaged AI strategy for cultural and creative sectors and industries), AI Innovation package, and others. The aim is maximising their impact and driving innovation and competitiveness.

AI offers significant opportunities for CCSI, but challenges persist, including skill gaps, limited interaction with technology partners, structural weaknesses of CCSI, mostly small and micro enterprises with weak bargaining power against big tech providers, and limited resources to train dedicated AI models. Other challenges relate to AI ethics, transparency and intellectual property rights, including copyright. By transcending siloed approaches and establishing synergies, CCSI can take advantage of economies of scale, harness AI's potential and drive innovation. The goal is establishing a permanent, networked reference point for CCSI through a virtual support platform that builds capacity and facilitates networking and collaboration among CCSI, stakeholders, researchers, technology developers, AI ethicists, and other industries and startups, with the overall aim to enable artists, cultural professionals, creative companies and cultural organisations to engage with AI, including dealing with biases and risks. The Support Platform is expected to enable the CCSI to access and utilize available custom-made tools, quality data, resources, knowledge, training, and AI applications aligned with their specific needs and with EU principles and regulations, thus easing the adoption of appropriate innovative ethical solutions and approaches tailored to the CCSI. Among the possible functions of the Support Platform should be:

• Disseminate or develop frameworks, standards, best practices, and toolkits serving as strategic guidance for integrating ethical AI into CCSI value chains.
• Facilitate cross-sector collaboration, synergies, and partnerships between CCSI professionals, AI tech companies, and startups, liaising with initiatives like the European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage (ECCCH), AI Factories, research infrastructures on cultural heritage and digital humanities, European Digital Innovation Hubs, ALT EDIC and LLMs4EU, Common European Data Space for Cultural heritage and other data spaces, and other EU initiatives in this area.
• Build and develop a solid copyright infrastructure to support the use and licensing of copyright-protected content in the context of AI.
• Suggest education and training frameworks and provide training to foster effective AI use in CCSI. Encourage CCSI and SMEs to engage with available federated data sources, digital infrastructures, computational resources, other available platforms to develop their own AI-powered products and services.
• Develop a roadmap for emerging challenges in AI and other emerging technologies related to culture and creativity.
• Engage in policy dialogues with policymakers, industry leaders, and stakeholders to emphasize culture's contribution to quality, ethical, and fair AI developments.

The platform is expected to develop and operate based on a robust sustainability and business model, ensuring long-term viability beyond the initial project phase. The business model should align with the platform’s objectives, ensuring it remains accessible to diverse organisations in terms of size and resources and that funding is not dominated by special interest groups.

The project should liaise with the EIT KIC Culture and Creativity to establish synergies, exchange information, and enhance mutual outcomes and impact. It should build on Horizon Europe funded projects in the area of AI and CCSI, particularly those funded under topics HORIZON-CL2-2025-01-HERITAGE-04: Leveraging artificial intelligence for creativity-driven innovation, HORIZON-CL2-2026-01-HERITAGE-03: AI integration in CCSI work practice: catalysing innovation and competitiveness, HORIZON-CL2-2026-01-HERITAGE-04: Towards a fair and transparent market for cultural and creative content in the era of generative AI, and establish synergies with relevant projects, and initiatives supported by other relevant EU programmes, such as Digital Europe, Creative Europe and their successors. The project should conduct a pilot of the virtual platform to ensure alignment with CCSI needs, assessing technical and operational feasibility to ensure sustainability over time. The virtual Support Platform should be fully operational by the project's conclusion.