Supporting innovation
The ministry works to support and accelerate the dissemination of innovations and economic models for cultural actors, ensuring environmental impacts, fair sharing of value and pooling investments. This support also involves supporting innovation and research carried out by cultural actors in the fields of the future, while creating the conditions for a fair and efficient cultural data economy.
Supporting and accelerating innovation potential
The innovations generated by digital technologies (big data, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and connectivity, etc.) open up huge prospects for the cultural sector. They benefit audiences, for example by facilitating the discovery of information and access to knowledge through translation, natural language interrogation, subtitling and over-titling in real time, or enriching their experiences with immersive virtual and sound technologies.
They also benefit cultural professionals. The exploitation of data allows the knowledge and development of audiences. 3D promises advances in heritage conservation and restoration. The digital model (BIM) accompanies the construction and management of the structures. Blockchain (blockchain) promotes the security and traceability of rights with blockchain (blockchain). The automatic recognition of images and handwritten characters can be used to fight against the illicit trafficking of cultural property,...
The SIMARA project (Entering Manuscript Inventories Assisted by Automatic Recognition) , supported under the “Develop the use of data in your administration” component of France Relance, is an example of the interest of new technologies for heritage professionals.
Through the cultural and creative industries strategy and the Culture section of France 2030 deploying a €1 billion effort to structure, strengthen and transform the sector, or with the Innovative Digital Services, the ministry continues to support the cultural sector in investing in innovation. These mechanisms must provide the means to experiment, seeking where relevant the pooling and pooling of proven solutions.
Find the overview of support methods in the matter.
Research and development
The Ministry particularly supports Research & Development efforts in the cultural sector, developing collaboration between the cultural sector and the world of research.
Thus, a convention between the Ministry of Culture and the Institut National de recherche en informatique et en automatique (Inria) makes it possible to accelerate and simplify the set-up of R&D projects between the Ministry and its network of supervised institutions. The objective is to facilitate the removal of technological barriers in all areas of cultural digital.
One of the Department’s heritage science research priorities is the digital applied to heritage. In this sector, significant progress is being made in heritage conservation and restoration.
The restoration site of Notre-Dame-de-Paris is also an opportunity for particularly strong innovations in this field. Thus, the realization of a digital twin of the building allows to aggregate the archives and the knowledge acquired during the construction.
The innovation and R&D efforts undertaken by the Cultural and Creative Industries sector must also be supported, particularly on the crucial themes and technological components that will be at the heart of tomorrow’s cultural experiences. Efforts must therefore focus on immersive technologies, virtual or augmented reality, automatic recognition of images and handwritten characters, real-time production, modelling variants, etc.
The research must also concern the services offered to the public and professionals, in terms of recommendation algorithms, integrated ticketing, conservation and restoration techniques, ...
The control of environmental impacts must be systematically taken into account in this framework.
Giving at the heart of innovation
Among these issues, mastery of data and metadata is a key element for economic models. They provide answers to current issues: knowledge and acquisition of audiences, optimization of production processes, monitoring of the exploitation of works, etc. Their shared exploitation is a critical issue for the sector.
In this perspective, the Cultural and Creative Industries acceleration strategy incorporates a AMI Creation of common infrastructures for sharing cultural data. It should support one or more projects for the creation of a common data-sharing infrastructure relating to the use of cultural content, its use and uses, as well as metadata relating to the content of works.
Public actors have a key role to play in structuring this ecosystem of cultural data by making reference and quality data available. Indeed, some non-Community actors maintain a dominant position on the subject. In addition, various obstacles have been identified, including the lack of quality data. The sector must therefore be supported in order to be able to fully exploit and value data across the entire value chain, from production to the dissemination of cultural content, without forgetting their preservation.
Innovation in economic models
The health crisis has seen the number of online experiences and cultural content explode. Two main consumption models emerge: free models, financed by advertising or the exploitation of user data, and subscription models. This polarization questions both the methods of sharing income within the value chain, and the level of remuneration of cultural actors.
Digital technology has led to the emergence of powerful global players whose size allows them to unlock considerable investment capacities. This is now a competitiveness issue for culture and a sovereignty issue for France. At the same time, digital technology has led to the collapse in value of certain markets, weakening essential links in creative financing.
This observation poses structuring challenges for all cultural sectors that need to accompany these changes as closely as possible and document them in the pursuit of objectives of general interest corresponding to an ambitious cultural policy. This is what the National Music Centre (CNM) does by publishing its study on the impact for rights holders of a transition from the remuneration model by music streaming platforms known as Market Centric Payment System (MCPS) to the User Centric Payment System (UCPS). New business models are also emerging by combining cultural offerings with other types of objects, or by offering non-reproducible digital content or experiences.
Since the national market is often too small to build economically viable models, these ecosystems must also be accompanied in their international development (facilitate international co-creations and co-productions, list and promote these creations, encourage the French presence on international prescriptive events, etc.). In line with this, the Creative European Cooperation Projects and the export component of the cultural and creative industries acceleration strategy are opportunities for development and partnership outside France.