Fourteenth International Conference on the Inclusive Museum

Abstract

This paper provides insight into the work done by the Diversity and Inclusion cross-team at Europeana, following up our presentation at the Inclusive Museums Conference in 2020 where we reviewed the start of this work. In 2020 the Diversity and Inclusion cross-team was formed with the goal of exploring and designing changes to our structures to make everyone feel welcome, represented and safe at the Europeana Foundation as well as to identify areas of concern and to understand the unconscious biases within the Europeana Foundation. We share the lessons learned after a year of focusing on that goal, to spark awareness, insight and discussion across the wider Cultural Heritage space. We touch on how Europeana is hiring guest editors with unique lived experiences to write more diverse pieces of editorial content that gives a platform and a voice to underrepresented communities; our work to make our events and other digital spaces more accessible for everyone; how we’re exploring ways to make the language we use in our metadata less problematic; and how we aim to support cultural heritage institutions in their decolonisation efforts. On top of that, we also touch upon our internal training that forms the beginning of creating a welcoming and safe environment at our Foundation which will eventually also run through all areas of our work.