DOORS Sparkle Report

DOORS – Digital Incubator for Museums was a project dedicated to digitalisation in small and medium-sized museums seen as a way for them to stay relevant and resilient in uncertain times. Initiated by partner organisations Ars Electronica, MUSEUM BOOSTER and ECSITE and funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, DOORS ran for two years from October 2021 to September 2023.

The project was conceived as a support scaffolding for museums at a moment in which attitudes towards the digitalisation of the sector had been changing, amidst the pandemic. The accelerated pace of technological developments and the pressure coming from the competition with on-demand content created on one hand haunting insecurity, but on the other - a strong desire for change. Despite the urgency, digital strategies for the future can be neither makeshift nor standard. The challenges of digitalisation are disproportionately found within smaller museums where the technologies and expertise to launch and sustain digital strategies are oftentimes unattainable. DOORS has been aiming to approach and mitigate the digitalisation gap by creating the space for small and medium-sized institutions to both voice their needs and offering them access to knowledge, resources, expertise and community of peers.

The overarching mission of the DOORS Incubation Programme was to spark lasting changes in small and medium-sized museums. We hope these changes would outlive our programme and boost a sustainable digital transformation on the institutional and sectoral level. Our two-stage incubation programme focused as much on the projects as on the teams and practitioners behind them and their potential to continuously drive change.