CRUSOE, through the Institutional Chair in Digital Cultural Heritage, participates in the new European Union project, ‘MetaHeritage: Metaverse and heritage routes as innovative approaches for networking, capacity building and interregional investments’, coordinated by the Portuguese University of Tras-os-Montes e Alto Douro (UTAD).
This initiative seeks to test new innovative approaches and possibilities for creating interregional networks, using virtual and smart heritage tourism as the main framework.
The result will contribute to increase the capacity of regional innovation ecosystems in less developed areas, as well as coordinated and interconnected strategies and tactics to attract interregional investments.
The project has two strands:
- Create heritage and cultural routes that thematically link culturally or historically significant sites and other tourist attractions in one or more countries.
- Building metaverses based on digital cultural heritage to increase interregional investment, capacity building and participation of companies, institutions or organizations.
Both approaches can be adapted to the unique characteristics and needs of each region. This convergence of cultural heritage, the metaverse, intelligent specialization in virtual and heritage tourism represents a dynamic and original approach to interregional development and economic growth.
In addition to CRUSOE and UTAD, MetaHeritage counts with the participation of Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Associazione Clust-Er Tourism, European Historic Houses, Clust-ER Innovate, European Clusters Alliance, Universidade dos Acores, Technische Universität Dresden, Time Machine Organisation (TMO), Asociación Clúster Empresarial de Turismo de Galicia, Fundaçao Casa Mateus, Fundação Côa Parque, Fundação Gaspar Frutuoso and Turismo do Porto e Norte de Portugal.
