THECOHERENCEATLAS
Not a training platform.
Not a standardisation system.
No extraction.
An infrastructure for living knowledge.
An essential part of Europe’s cultural heritage is neither written nor formalised. It lives in processes, gestures and situated decisions at the intersection of body, matter and context.
The Coherence Atlas was created to document intangible craft heritage as a living knowledge system. It does not convert knowledge into tutorials or procedures: it makes legible the conditions, variability and relationships that allow knowledge to continue to exist and be transmitted.
THE STRUCTURAL PROBLEM
What cannot be observed cannot be transmitted.Traditional systems of archiving, training and museum preservation retain objects and descriptions, but often fail to represent how embodied knowledge actually happens.
Do not merely digitise content. Build a shared method for observing, documenting and transmitting living processes.
Document intangible heritage
Structure complex knowledge without reducing it to isolated techniques or replicable sequences.
Ensure European interoperability
Metadata and frameworks designed to interoperate with Europeana, IIIF, UNESCO and research infrastructures.
Transmit without extracting
Preserve adaptation, context, variability and the role of human judgement in intergenerational transmission.
Apply the CARE Principles
Maintain the authority, agency and control of heritage communities over documented knowledge.
01AStrategic objectives and scope+
The project does not merely preserve artefacts or descriptions: it creates the conditions to make embodied knowledge systems legible, comparable and transmissible without turning them into instructions.
Document
Treat processes, decisions, temporalities and material relationships as structured, citable intangible cultural heritage.
Interoperate
Make records compatible with European cultural and research infrastructures while preserving provenance, local specificity and access levels.
Transmit
Preserve variability, context, human judgement and intergenerational relationships instead of converting knowledge into a standard procedure.
Safeguard agency
Recognise heritage communities’ authority over representation, disclosure and the conditions for reusing their knowledge.
What the project is not
01BProject status and European horizon+
The Coherence Atlas is conceived as a multi-year digital cultural infrastructure oriented towards cultural cooperation and European research.
The project is presented as an infrastructure in development and structuring. Academic dialogues, partnerships, funding models and implementation timelines depend on the progressive construction of the network and relevant cooperation programmes.
Infrastructure in development · methodological baseline defined · adoption and record release planned progressively and under governance.
01CFunding, partnerships and implementation horizon+
The original corpus places The Coherence Atlas in a development and structuring phase oriented towards European programmes for cultural cooperation and the safeguarding of intangible heritage.
European programmes
Contexts under consideration include Creative Europe, together with other European instruments relevant to cultural cooperation and research.
Horizon
The implementation phase was envisaged over 2026–2029, subject to funding, partnerships and institutional formalisation.
Collaborations
Academic and institutional relationships are described as dialogues under development, not as recognition or agreements already formalised.
01DContinuity beyond the project cycle+
Continuity is part of the infrastructure thesis: the project’s value does not depend on the permanence of a single programme, but on its capacity to be maintained and reused over time.
The original corpus indicated a post-project continuity objective of more than ten years, based on progressive integration into academic, cultural and research contexts.
Process. Decision. Time. Matter.
Four inseparable dimensions for observing knowledge as a living system, not as a set of isolated techniques.
PROCESS
The craft process is observed as a structure of embodied knowledge: gesture, decision, time and matter act together. Expertise appears in the ability to read context, recognise signals that cannot be formalised and adapt action without turning it into a standard procedure.
WE DOCUMENT
- Significant decision points
- Culturally legitimate variability
- Temporalities and rhythms that cannot be accelerated
- Material constraints and properties
- Supply-chain relationships and interdependencies
- Situated quality criteria
WE DO NOT DOCUMENT
- Step-by-step technical tutorials
- Operating instructions
- Automatable workflows
- Replication shortcuts
- Optimisation or standardisation models
PROCESS ASSET CARD
The museum record applied to a living process.
A device for making the process citable, versionable and interoperable without turning it into reproducible know-how.
METHODOLOGICAL DEPTH
The process is a system of embodied knowledge. The record must make gesture, choice, time, matter and variability observable without decomposing them into a replicable workflow.
P.01Complete Process Asset Card legend+
Decision Trace Map
A non-linear map of the process, used to make decision points visible without turning them into instructions.
MAKES VISIBLE
- material inputs and contextual conditions;
- situated decisions and embodied gestures;
- qualitative outcomes and documented variability;
- dependencies between material properties, environment, intentionality and experience.
It does not describe replicable workflows, provide instructions or support automation or standardisation.
Safeguarding prioritises living heritage, community agency and variability as an essential component of transmission.
DECISION
A decision is not an optimisable rule but an act of judgement emerging from experience, perception, time, matter and context. The Atlas makes conditions, alternatives and qualitative criteria visible without converting them into if/then logic or prescriptive instructions.
WE DOCUMENT
- Conditions that make a choice necessary
- Qualitative criteria considered
- Culturally legitimate alternatives
- Role of experience and perception
- Acceptable decision variability
WE DO NOT DOCUMENT
- Fixed decision rules
- If/then logic
- Predictive algorithms
- Optimisation procedures
- Instructions for “choosing correctly”
DECISION ASSET CARD
Human judgement made citable, not replicable.
The card documents the decision context, triggers, criteria, alternatives and trace of the choice, while keeping the non-delegable role of experience visible.
METHODOLOGICAL DEPTH
The decision is documented as a situated cultural event: the purpose is to make conditions, criteria, alternatives and responsibilities visible, not to encode the “correct choice”.
D.01Complete Decision Asset Card legend+
Decision Trace Map
Represents the choice as a non-linear, contextual event.
MAKES VISIBLE
- relationship between matter and decision;
- possible alternatives;
- dependence on context;
- variability of judgement.
The map provides no procedures, produces no universal rule and does not allow judgement to be delegated to an automated system.
Safeguarding recognises the decision as a cultural act, respects community agency and protects human judgement from improper formalisation.
TIME
Craft time is not the same as the duration of an operation. It is made of rhythms, cycles, seasonality, waiting periods and phases of non-action. Expertise is also expressed in recognising when to wait, pause or change rhythm.
WE DOCUMENT
- Process rhythms
- Culturally significant durations
- Waiting and maturation times
- Seasonal and environmental cycles
- Phases of pause and non-action
- Relationship between time and decision
WE DO NOT DOCUMENT
- Production schedules
- Standardised times
- Efficiency indicators
- Acceleration models
- Optimisation of time flows
TIME ASSET CARD
Make visible what cannot be accelerated.
The Time Asset Card documents qualitative temporalities and temporal variability without converting them into production metrics.
METHODOLOGICAL DEPTH
Time is an active component of knowledge: rhythm, cycle, waiting, pause, maturation and the appropriate moment condition quality, gesture and decision.
T.01Complete Time Asset Card legend+
Time Trace Map
Makes cycles and discontinuities legible without converting them into a schedule.
CAN REPRESENT
- cycles, pauses and waiting phases;
- returns and resumptions;
- qualitative accelerations and decelerations;
- temporal bifurcations linked to matter, environment or decision.
It is not a tool for scheduling, efficiency or flow optimisation.
What cannot be accelerated without losing cultural quality is made explicit as part of the heritage, not as inefficiency.
MATTER
Matter is not a neutral input: it reacts, resists, changes and imposes limits. Its properties influence gesture, decision and time. Knowledge lies in the ability to read and interpret this behaviour, not to dominate it through standard parameters.
WE DOCUMENT
- Qualitative properties of matter
- Variable and unstable behaviours
- Resistance, limits and thresholds
- Sensory interactions
- Effects on gesture and decision
- Situated adaptations
WE DO NOT DOCUMENT
- Industrial technical sheets
- Standardised parameters
- Control or prediction models
- Operating instructions for manipulation
- Reduction of matter to production input
MATTER ASSET CARD
Matter, gesture and decision within the same field of observation.
The card records limits, instabilities, sensory behaviours and relationships with human judgement without turning matter into an industrial specification.
METHODOLOGICAL DEPTH
Matter participates in the decision: it reacts, resists, varies, produces sensory signals and imposes thresholds that expert knowledge must interpret.
M.01Complete Matter Asset Card legend+
Matter Trace Map
Represents the relationship between material behaviour, perception, gesture and decision.
MAKES VISIBLE
- material signals and changes;
- qualitative limits and thresholds;
- adaptations of gesture;
- decisions influenced by material response.
It is not an industrial technical sheet and is not intended to predict or control the material outside the documented cultural context.
Matter is treated as an agent within the cultural process: knowledge lies in the interpretive relationship between human being, matter and context.
Seven forms of intangible heritage.
Gesture and embodied knowledge
Embodied knowledge expressed through movement, experience and perception, not reducible to formal instructions.
Product construction logics
Design criteria and construction decisions that determine the form, function, durability and coherence of the artefact.
Contemporary intermediate knowledge
Knowledge situated between tradition, specialised manufacturing and advanced production systems, not reducible to academic training or mere execution.
Time as cultural matter
Waiting, rhythms, cycles and temporalities that cannot be accelerated as a constitutive part of knowledge.
Relationship between matter and decision
Dynamic interaction between material properties, sensory perception and situated choices.
Supply-chain systems as knowledge
Production networks, territorial interdependencies and knowledge distributed across the supply chain as shared cultural heritage.
Transmission models
Ways in which knowledge passes between individuals, generations and contexts without being simplified, automated or frozen.
Observe without extracting
No technical tutorials; focus on decisions, variability and context; community control; interoperable metadata; disclosure levels consistent with CARE.
Digital, modular, interoperable.
INFRA
STRUC
TURE
Designed for documentation, analysis and transmission of knowledge without turning it into technical training or an extractive dataset.
Institutional documentation
Orientation for researchers, universities, museums, archives, heritage communities and policy makers.
Interoperability
Europeana, structured metadata, provenance, differentiated disclosure and controlled access.
Rights & reuse
Creative Commons, RightsStatements.org, attribution, special permissions and community rights.
Accessibility & multilingualism
Design oriented towards WCAG 2.1 AA and cross-border accessibility.
Disclosure layers
Public, Restricted / Mediated and Not Publishable according to cultural sensitivity, consent and context.
A common methodological grammar.
FRAMEWORK™
The methodological framework governs what is observed, how it is documented, according to which criteria and within which limits. It is designed to make embodied knowledge verifiable and transmissible without converting it into instruction, technical standard or extractive content.
Institutional framing
Project alignment with UNESCO 2003, the Faro Convention, Europeana and European principles for digital cultural infrastructures.
Non-extraction
Centrality of living knowledge, descriptive observation, no tutorialisation and protection of variability.
Situated documentation
Records built in real context, with consent, provenance, disclosure levels and editorial responsibility.
Verifiable & interoperable
Structured records, metadata, EDM/CIDOC-compatible datasets, KPI, audit trail, licensing and attribution.
Framework-compliant
Compliance subject to methodological verification, editorial validation, completeness of the four axes and ethical coherence.
Versioning & recognition
Evolving baseline, changelog, scientific review and a perspective of adoption within European networks.
Structural record specifications
IDENTITY
- Record ID
- Title
- Abstract
- Reference heritage
- Record status
PROCESS
- Gesture clusters
- Decision points
- Temporal markers
- Material constraints
- Variability
PROVENANCE
- Heritage community
- Place
- Documentation date
- Curators / researchers
- Responsible institution
ACCESS
- Disclosure level
- Rights statement
- Licence
- Consent
- Versioning / audit trail
05.1Record rules and completeness control+
The record structure is a methodological safeguard: identity, the four analytical axes, provenance and access must be documented coherently before publication.
05.2Limited use of AI within the documentation workflow+
Automation does not replace observation, decision-making or cultural validation. It may only support ancillary functions that do not extract sensitive knowledge.
Permitted
Completeness checks, identification of formal inconsistencies, normalisation or metadata assistance.
Not permitted
Generating procedures, inferring operating rules, reconstructing unpublished know-how or replacing the judgement of the heritage community.
Principle
Technology supports record quality; it must not convert living heritage into a replicable model.
05.3Baseline, benchmarks and references+
The methodological baseline is built in relation to UNESCO 2003, the Faro Convention and European infrastructures/standards for digital heritage and interoperability. The Framework is designed to evolve through versioning, verification and review.
Safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage and the centrality of living heritage.
Role of heritage communities, participation and the social value of heritage.
Interoperability, publication, metadata and rights statements.
Reference point for legibility, exchange and continuity across infrastructures.
05.4Extended Framework hierarchy: four axes + three observational layers+
The four axes remain the minimum unit of the record. The original corpus adds three complementary lenses that reveal who embodies the knowledge, how it moves through time and how deeply it remains rooted in context.
Embodied knowledge
Makes visible the relationship between process and knowledge holder: role, responsibility, experience, lineage and continuity of practice. It does not turn the person into a “data source”, but preserves their authority and agency.
Continuity through time
Observes generational transitions, adaptations, discontinuities, returns and transformations of knowledge. It distinguishes cultural continuity from mere formal preservation.
Situated process
Records the relationship between practice, territory, production ecosystem, resources, supply chain and social context. Place is not ancillary metadata: it can be a condition of knowledge.
These three layers do not replace PROCESS–DECISION–TIME–MATTER and do not form new autonomous categories: they extend the record’s capacity to describe continuity, embodiment and context without increasing technical replicability.
05.5Complete record mapping: identity, context, four axes, governance+
Methodological validity does not derive from the amount of content collected, but from completeness and the relationship between fields. The record is conceived as an auditable, versionable unit.
Publication as a complete record requires all four axes to be present. Structural completeness prevents an isolated fragment of knowledge from being mistaken for the process as a whole.
05.6Methodological safeguards and the limits of automation+
The Framework distinguishes between tools that help make the record coherent and tools that attempt to infer or replace human knowledge.
Descriptive, not prescriptive
Signals, thresholds, context and variants may be documented; technical recipes, operating rules and choice instructions are not turned into system outputs.
Ancillary automation
Completeness checks, formal coherence, assisted metadata creation and version management may be automated when they do not alter the cultural substance of the record.
Non-delegable judgement
Interpretation, cultural validation, disclosure definition and assessment of the legitimacy of variants remain human and community responsibilities.
Observe, structure, validate, publish.
METHODOLOGICAL ARCHITECTURE
The protocols define how heritage is observed and transformed into a verifiable record. They are not technical production procedures: they ensure rigour, ethical safeguarding and coherence with PROCESS–DECISION–TIME–MATTER.
Situated observation
Knowledge is documented in the real context of practice, not in simulations or demonstrations constructed for teaching purposes.
Methodological validation
Completeness, coherence, absence of extraction, metadata quality and ethical constraints are verified before publication.
Selective recording
Expert decisions, critical thresholds and meaningful relationships between gesture, time and matter are selected: not everything is recorded.
Informed consent
Knowledge holders understand purposes and intended uses and participate in defining disclosure levels.
Field observation
Presence in the place of practice and non-intrusive observation of the process.
- continuous observation;
- audio/video only when permitted;
- structured notes across the four axes;
- attention to environment, materials and context.
Record structuring
Observed material is organised within the Framework model.
- structural CMS fields;
- completeness of the four axes;
- removal of training/extractive content;
- EDM/CIDOC metadata where relevant.
Review and validation
Methodological, scientific and editorial review before release.
- peer review;
- Framework compliance;
- consent and disclosure;
- licensing and metadata.
Publication & audit trail
The validated record enters the system with explicit status and traceability.
- Framework-compliant badge;
- versioning and timestamp;
- audit trail of changes;
- interoperable export where permitted.
P.QAQuality controls+
Automated controls
- required fields;
- presence of the four axes;
- metadata schema validation;
- licensing, attribution and disclosure;
- integrity of references and links.
Human review
- absence of training or extractive content;
- descriptive coherence;
- quality of situated observation;
- consent and access levels;
- linguistic and editorial quality.
P.NOStructural exclusions+
The protocol excludes documentation that would enable technical replication, deduction of sensitive know-how, automation of gestures or decisions, or publication against agreed consent and disclosure. The limit is not ancillary: it is part of the methodology.
Transmit without freezing.
Safeguarding without freezing
Variability is a component of living knowledge, not a deviation. Safeguarding maintains recognisability and continuity without museumising or fixing a definitive form.
Masters & Bearers Programme
Knowledge holders are recognised as cultural authorities. Documentation is participatory and respects agency, consent and community control over its own heritage.
Comparative Transmission Models
Comparative analysis of how knowledge is transmitted across different contexts, observing continuity, adaptation and innovation without seeking uniform standards.
Differentiated access, shared responsibility.
FOUR AUDIENCES
The value of the Atlas changes according to who uses it. Access is not equivalent to a right to extract: purpose, disclosure, licences and responsibilities define what may be done.
Navigate complexity.
Conceptual maps, metadata and corpus structure help interpret embodied knowledge without reducing it to a procedure.
Study relationships and variability.
The Framework and records allow decision points, temporalities, matter, context and alternatives to be analysed without generating a single rule.
Use without turning into a tutorial.
Transmission is cultural, academic and institutional: it does not produce technical instructions or replace the knowledge holder.
Cultural institutions
Museums, archives and heritage organisations may use records for research, interpretation, exhibition and cooperation, subject to licences and disclosure.
Heritage communities
Communities participate in the representation of knowledge, define access limits and may intervene on consent, attribution and disclosure levels.
Universities & research
Use for research, publications and comparative analysis is possible without turning heritage into a training dataset or operating manual.
Policy makers
Public bodies and administrations may use the infrastructure to support understanding of transmission systems, cultural policy and cooperation.
06A.1Permitted uses by audience+
Cultural institutions
- cataloguing and metadata creation;
- integration with Europeana-compliant systems;
- metadata export where permitted;
- comparative analysis across collections.
Heritage communities
- participatory documentation;
- control of disclosure levels;
- access to their own assets;
- collaboration with safeguarding institutions.
Universities & research
- analysis of structured metadata;
- study of transmission models;
- scholarly citation;
- use in research projects.
Policy makers
- aggregated analysis for policy design;
- assessment of cultural impact;
- institutional reporting;
- identification of gaps and priorities.
06A.2Usage workflow+
Access & navigation
Identify relevant assets and sections through structure, maps and the index.
Metadata consultation
Read provenance, disclosure, rights and context before any reuse.
Analysis & citation
Use records for study and research while respecting attribution and established conditions.
Interoperability
Integrate metadata into external systems only where export, licences and access permit it.
Every reuse remains subject to permitted purposes, attribution, licence, consent and the disclosure level of the individual record.
Documentation devices, not examples to imitate.
Development status
Progressive participatory documentation, with controlled release based on disclosure levels defined with heritage communities.
Case studies observe specific craft processes as living, situated knowledge systems. Each case documents decisions, variability, temporalities, matter and interdependencies without providing technical tutorials or replicable models.
Cultural and territorial context
Process map
Decision points
Temporality
Material relations
Variability & alternatives
Heritage community & consent
Disclosure & access
Measure safeguarding, complexity and continuity.
Not economic performance.
Indicators measure methodological quality, governance, accessibility, interoperability and the capacity to generate cultural continuity. Impact is assessed as safeguarding over time, not as scale or economic return.
assets with structured metadata according to the designed model
cases with documented variability
heritage communities involved as a project target
technical tutorials
OUTPUT
Verifiable records · interoperable datasets · metadata · audit trail · licensing.
OUTCOME
Scientific and institutional reuse without loss of methodological coherence.
IMPACT
Observable cultural continuity, intergenerational transmission and European cooperation.
08.1Monitoring, baseline and horizon+
KPIs are proposed system targets, not results already achieved. They are used to measure safeguarding, quality and continuity.
Baseline
Framework v1.0 and first structure of verifiable indicators.
Horizon
Multi-year monitoring, with operational and impact readings.
Frequency
Periodic operational controls, annual impact review and ad hoc audits for governance or risk.
08.2Verification sources and accountability+
Data quality
- metadata audits;
- interoperability validators;
- audit trail and versioning;
- badge checks.
Methodological quality
- peer review;
- editorial review;
- ethnographic analysis;
- ethics and disclosure register.
Adoption & accessibility
- partnership/adoption agreements;
- CARE audit;
- WCAG verification;
- reuse and citation analysis.
If a record is not structured it is not interoperable; if it is not verifiable it is not governable; if it is not governable it cannot be considered reliable safeguarding over time.
08.3Complete KPI matrix: project targets and verification sources+
The original site frames KPIs as audit-ready targets, not as results already achieved. The matrix links each objective to an independent or traceable verification source.
Verification combines technical tools, scientific review and ethical/community assessment. No single type of control is sufficient to define the quality of the infrastructure.
08.4Audit readiness and verification-source system+
Each indicator is designed to be reconstructable by third parties. Measurement must be verifiable without depending on a promotional claim made by the project.
Technical verification
- EDM/Europeana validators;
- automated and manual WCAG tests;
- access and interface-usage logs;
- metadata completeness and integrity audits.
Scientific verification
- peer review of records;
- ethnographic analysis of transformations;
- monitoring of publications and citations;
- review of methodological coherence.
Ethical and community verification
- informed consent;
- CARE and disclosure audits;
- Ethics Committee logs;
- agreements with heritage communities.
Governance as an infrastructure of trust.
Strategic Committee
- Institutional direction
- Coherence with the cultural mission
- Relationships with European networks and programmes
- Sustainability and continuity of the infrastructure
Scientific Committee
- Methodological review and peer review
- Approval of baseline updates
- Metadata validation
- Ethical oversight of documentation
Operating team
- Technical management of the platform
- Support for institutions and communities
- KPI monitoring
- Editorial curation and coordination
Documented and traceable methodological decisions.
Semantic versioning, changelog and the ability to reconstruct changes.
Heritage communities participate in decisions concerning their own knowledge.
Methodological developments are subject to review and validation.
CARE Principles as a bridge between data governance and cultural governance.
Collective Benefit · Authority to Control · Responsibility · Ethics are applied to the European context of intangible heritage, with particular attention to community control, consent and collective benefit.
ETHICS COMMITTEE · IN DEVELOPMENT
Independent body for ethical and cultural safeguards.Designed to protect heritage, communities and knowledge holders, preventing extraction, simplification and appropriation.
09.1CARE as an operating governance model+
Collective Benefit
Documentation must generate value for communities and cultural continuity, not only for those who access the data.
Authority to Control
Communities participate in controlling representation, access and reuse.
Responsibility
Curators, researchers and institutions retain traceable responsibility for documentation decisions.
Ethics
Consent, non-extraction, attribution and safeguarding take precedence over the pursuit of maximum openness.
09.2Disclosure layers+
Levels are defined with communities and may be revised: openness does not override cultural authority.
09.3Breaches, crises and conflicts of interest+
Governance provides for proportionate escalation in cases of unauthorised use, disclosure breaches, cultural appropriation or reuse incompatible with the Non-Extraction Policy. Responses may include suspension of access, case review, involvement of the Ethics Committee, legal action or public reporting where appropriate.
Conflicts of interest must be declared and managed when a party involved in validation, governance or reuse may directly benefit from the decision taken.
09.4Classification of ethical incidents and proportionate response+
The original governance model distinguishes three classes of incident to avoid both underreaction and disproportionate response.
Level 1 · Minor
Procedural errors, typos, unintentional incomplete attribution.
- operational correction;
- notification to the parties involved;
- internal recording without escalation.
Level 2 · Medium
Unintentional disclosure breaches, misuse by third parties, attribution disputes.
- temporary suspension of the asset;
- ethical assessment;
- community consultation;
- anonymised report where appropriate.
Level 3 · Serious
Unauthorised commercial use, intentional disclosure breach, appropriation or use for commercial AI training.
- immediate suspension of related assets;
- crisis protocol;
- involvement of the strategic layer;
- protective action and public reporting compatible with privacy and rights.
09.5Conflicts of interest and decision-making process+
Transparency concerns not only published data, but also who makes decisions about method, access and validation.
CONFLICTS TO DECLARE
STRUCTURAL DECISION PATH
Proposal
Rationale, subject, expected impact and parties involved are documented.
Scientific review
Assessment of methodological compliance and impact on the baseline.
Consultation
When a change affects heritage or disclosure, the relevant community enters the process.
Approval & versioning
The approved decision generates a changelog, a new version where necessary and traceability.
09.6Crisis protocol and institutional memory+
In the event of a breach, misuse or dispute, the objective is not to “manage reputation”, but to protect assets, communities and methodological integrity.
Notification to the ethics function and opening of a documentary trail for the incident.
Temporary suspension of access to the assets involved where necessary to prevent further harm.
Assessment of the case under the established ethical procedure, within a time window defined by the governance model.
Consultation with the knowledge holders or communities involved.
Documented decision and communication compatible with privacy, rights and disclosure levels.
Corrective measures, possible policy updates and recording of the change in versioning.
Patch, minor and major are not merely release numbers: they make it possible to reconstruct how the infrastructure has changed its rules of observation, safeguarding and transmission over time.
A framework that can evolve without losing traceability.
MULTI-LAYER GOVERNANCE
The project structure separates methodological oversight, technical implementation and stakeholder representation while maintaining transparency, reversibility, inclusivity and scientific rigour.
Scientific Committee
- methodological review of records;
- protocol updates;
- assessment of model extensions;
- oversight of ethical coherence.
Technical Committee
- metadata schemas;
- European interoperability;
- API/export where provided;
- automated CMS controls.
Stakeholder Advisory Board
- representation of knowledge holders;
- feedback on ethical protocols;
- contribution to disclosure;
- assessment of cultural impact.
09A.1Semantic versioning and public changelog+
Patch · v1.0.x
Editorial corrections or clarifications with no structural impact.
Minor · v1.x.0
Backward-compatible extensions, new protocols or metadata with methodological review.
Major · v2.0.0
Structural changes to the model, with extended scientific review and stakeholder consultation.
CHANGELOG
Each change is designed to report version/date, rationale, impact on existing records, decision level involved and updated documentation.
09A.2Prospective institutionalisation pathway+
Consolidation
Public baseline, validated pilot records and shared protocols.
European network
Network of cultural institutions, research organisations and communities adopting the Framework as a reference.
Recognition
Assessment of forms of European/international recognition consistent with maturity and governance.
ERIC and other models
ERIC is a possible reference for understanding European infrastructure models, not an acquired status or predetermined outcome.
09A.3Framework-compliant: criteria and public checklist+
The badge indicates a record’s methodological compliance with the Framework; it is not a professional, technical or commercial certification.
A single missing criterion prevents the status from being assigned. The checklist also includes audit trail, geographical/temporal references, verifiable sources, language quality and accessibility.
09A.4Ethics Committee Rules · 10-article framework+
The rules define the Ethics Committee as a body safeguarding cultural and methodological integrity. At the time of the original publication, the Committee was described as a structure being established.
Purpose and scope
Functions, principles and procedures of the Committee; protection of communities and knowledge holders in documentation, transmission and access activities.
Scope
Documentation, protocols, community involvement, access management, dissemination and reuse of materials.
Ethical principles
Living heritage, agency, variability, non-commercialisation, non-extraction, transparency and responsibility.
References
UNESCO 2003, the Faro Convention and relevant European principles on access and cultural responsibility.
Functions
Ethical oversight, guidance, assessment of critical issues, support for protocols and institutional coherence; no day-to-day management.
Advisory intervention
Representation, consent, access, reporting of breaches and policy updates.
Composition
Interdisciplinary expertise in heritage, research, law and ethics; composition defined progressively.
Status
Reference framework for the future formal establishment of the Committee and the start of its activities.
Transparency
The principles, existence of the Committee and its rules are conceived as public information.
Updates
The rules may evolve with the project structure while maintaining traceability and coherence with the Framework.
09A.5External adoption of the Coherence Framework™+
The Framework is also conceived for adoption by cultural institutions, research projects and heritage communities outside The Coherence Atlas.
Proposed licence
The original corpus specifies CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 for methodological documentation: non-commercial use, attribution and consistent sharing of adaptations.
Support
Technical documentation, implementation guidelines, structured record templates and methodological support may accompany adoption.
Adoption statement
Adopters may publicly state their use of the Coherence Framework™, indicating version and compliance with applicable methodological and ethical protocols.
09A.6Badge use, export and citations+
Framework-compliant is a methodological status of the record, not a professional or commercial certification.
European standards, provenance and access control.
Interoperability without homogenisation.
The data structure is designed to make records legible and reusable at European level while preserving local specificity, provenance and community authority.
10.1Data governance principles+
Provenance
Each record retains origin, responsibility, community, date and documentation context.
Interoperability
Standards allow different systems to communicate; they do not homogenise cultural content.
Access control
The fact that metadata is interoperable does not imply that every underlying item is publishable or reusable.
STANDARDS AND FUNCTIONS
10.2Complete metadata schema and technical integrity+
The record combines cultural metadata and technical integrity. Interoperability does not require heritage to be homogenised, but identity, provenance, access and data history to be explicit.
Descriptive
- unique title and ID;
- abstract;
- controlled tag/vocabulary;
- ISO 639 language;
- heritage type.
Provenance
- heritage community;
- place / geographic reference;
- ISO 8601 date;
- responsible institution;
- curators and researchers.
Access
- Public / Restricted / Not Publishable;
- licence or rights statement;
- reuse conditions;
- consent;
- CARE restrictions.
Technical
- format;
- dimensions / resolution where relevant;
- integrity checksum;
- versioning history;
- audit trail.
10.3Selective interoperability: access, export and reuse+
Being interoperable does not mean making everything exportable. The data structure separates what may circulate from what must remain mediated or non-publishable.
FAIR and CARE are treated together: findability and interoperability are subordinate to authority to control, responsibility and the ethics of reuse.
European Added Value.
The problem is not the absence of knowledge.
It is the absence of non-extractive infrastructures capable of making the continuity of cultural processes observable over time, beyond a single territory and beyond the cycle of a single project.
European added value
A common grammar enables institutions, researchers and communities to document living processes in a comparable and interoperable way without standardising practices or transferring authority over data.
11.1Complete chain of change+
11.2European Added Value+
European added value does not come from homogenising local practices, but from making different knowledge systems legible through a common grammar of metadata, governance, rights and verification. The model aims to enable comparison, cooperation and continuity without erasing provenance, variability or local control.
11.3Continuity beyond a single project: people, time, space+
Cultural continuity is not the same as the persistence of a file. For this reason, the Theory of Change connects the record to the people who carry the knowledge, to transformations over time and to the contexts in which the process continues to have meaning.
Who carries the knowledge
Recognition of cultural authority, responsibility and transmission mechanisms.
How it changes over time
Generational transitions, adaptations and discontinuities are observed as part of living heritage.
Where it remains situated
Territory, supply chain, material conditions and social network help explain why knowledge is not simply transferable everywhere.
Policies are part of the cultural architecture.
Open access does not mean availability for exploitation. Safeguarding requires explicit rules on reuse, attribution, personal data, non-commercial use, disclosure and non-extraction.
Open Access Policy
Content classified as Public is accessible without a paywall. Metadata is designed in standard formats to support interoperability and research; access remains subject to disclosure levels defined with communities.
Non-Commercial Policy
The infrastructure is oriented towards cultural, research, study and cooperation purposes. Content is not intended for the production of goods, commercial courses, consulting services, marketing or advertising exploitation.
- Academic research and scientific publication are permitted subject to licence conditions.
- Museum exhibitions and activities by non-profit cultural institutions are permitted.
- Non-extractive public and university teaching is permitted.
- Use by public bodies for cultural policy is permitted.
- Direct or indirect monetisation of documented knowledge is prohibited.
Non-Extraction Policy
Protecting the agency of knowledge holders requires explicit limits on systematic extraction, automation and the transformation of heritage into transferable know-how.
- Use of content for training or fine-tuning generative AI systems is prohibited.
- Robotic or algorithmic automation of documented craft gestures and processes is prohibited.
- Mass scraping or harvesting for commercial products and data-as-a-service is prohibited.
- Reverse engineering intended for cloning, industrialisation or tutorialisation is prohibited.
- Centrality of the CARE principle “Authority to Control”.
Licensing & Attribution
The use regime combines open access, non-commercial use, attribution, material integrity and safeguarding of communities. The applicable licence may depend on the individual record and its disclosure level.
- Attribution to The Coherence Atlas and knowledge holders is mandatory where required.
- Respect for original meaning and cultural context.
- No distortion or extraction of value from documented heritage.
- Creative Commons licences and rights statements applied consistently with the record.
Terms of Use
Access to the site is intended for cultural consultation, research, study and institutional use. Public availability of content does not turn it into manuals, operating know-how or freely exploitable resources.
- Commercial use is prohibited.
- Conversion into operating instructions is prohibited.
- Use for AI training and automation is prohibited.
- Intellectual property, attribution and reuse limits remain applicable.
Privacy & GDPR
Processing of personal data is limited to the institutional and technical needs of the site and must comply with Regulation (EU) 2016/679. Browsing data and information voluntarily provided are used for operation, security and responses to requests.
- No profiling as a stated principle.
- Collection limited to necessary data.
- Legal bases: consent, legal obligations and legitimate interest limited to technical security.
- Data-subject rights may be exercised through the institutional contacts indicated by the platform.
Framework-compliant
Framework-compliant status attests that a record has been documented in coherence with PROCESS–DECISION–TIME–MATTER, non-extractive protocols, metadata, governance and editorial verification.
- Completeness of the four analytical axes.
- Application of situated-observation protocols.
- Minimum verifiable metadata and interoperable mapping.
- Consent, disclosure and attribution consistent with ethical protocols.
- Methodological and editorial review before status assignment.
- The badge does not constitute professional, technical or commercial certification.
POLICY ARCHIVE
Policies are not a legal annex separate from the method: they define what may be seen, shared, reused or excluded, and therefore form part of the cultural architecture of the infrastructure.
Open Access
Content classified as Public is accessible without a paywall. Openness remains subject to disclosure, attribution and licence conditions.
- metadata in interoperable formats;
- differentiated access for sensitive content;
- no automatic equivalence between “open” and “free exploitation”.
Non-Commercial
Documented knowledge is oriented towards research, culture, study, cooperation, museums, public education and policy; not production, marketing or monetisation.
- direct or indirect monetisation of knowledge prohibited;
- scientific and cultural reuse within licence limits;
- no conversion into a commercial service.
Non-Extraction
Agency requires explicit limits on systematic extraction, automation and transformation of heritage into transferable know-how.
- no generative training/fine-tuning on protected content;
- no robotic or algorithmic automation of processes;
- no mass scraping for commercial products;
- no reverse engineering intended for cloning or tutorialisation.
Licensing & Attribution
Licence, attribution and rights statement must be legible at record level. Content and methodological documentation may have different reuse conditions.
- attribution to knowledge holders and responsible institutions;
- respect for access levels;
- sharing only within the scope indicated by the record.
Privacy & Data Protection
Personal data, contacts, consent and sensitive materials must be processed according to stated purposes, minimisation, security and applicable rights. Cultural publication does not override data-protection obligations.
Terms of Use
Use of the infrastructure implies respect for licences, disclosure limits, community rights, attribution rules and extraction prohibitions. Technical access does not amount to a transfer of rights over knowledge.
12.1Enforcement and breaches of the Non-Extraction Policy+
The original corpus provides for the possibility of revoking or suspending access, documenting breaches, activating governance/the Ethics Committee and using legal remedies when reuse violates consent, disclosure or substantive restrictions. The response must be proportionate to severity and preserve traceability.
12.2Distinction between content licensing and Framework licensing+
The corpus distinguishes reuse of individual content/records — dependent on licence, rights statement and disclosure — from adoption of the methodological documentation of the Coherence Framework™, for which the project provides conditions of non-commercial use, attribution and consistent sharing of modifications. The licence must therefore be read at the correct level of the reused object.
Networks, research, communities, continuity.
INFRASTRUCTURE AS A NETWORK
The project’s continuity does not depend solely on the digital platform: it requires communities, cultural institutions, scientific research and the technical capacity to maintain standards, records and governance over time.
Institutional networks & heritage communities
Collaborations and adoption are designed to include knowledge holders, cultural institutions and territorial actors without subordinating communities to the logic of the archive alone.
Scientific coordination
Methodological curation safeguards record quality, protocols, Framework evolution and the relationship with academic debate.
Technical support
Metadata, accessibility, interoperability, versioning and infrastructure continuity support the system without determining cultural content.
Bauhaus-Universität Weimar
Reference context for exploring relationships between intangible heritage, contemporary design and cultural processes.
Sorbonne Université
Reference for anthropological research, material cultures and knowledge-transmission models.
Dialogues, partnerships, funding and timelines remain in evolution. The project is presented as an infrastructure in development and structuring, not as an institution already formally recognised.
Academic and institutional dialogue.
Bauhaus-Universität Weimar
Academic reference context for exploring applications of the infrastructure in research on intangible heritage, contemporary design and cultural processes.
Sorbonne Université
Reference for anthropological research, material cultures and knowledge-transmission models in relation to the project’s methodological framework.
Dialogues, funding and project timelines are evolving. The Coherence Atlas is presented as an infrastructure in development and structuring, with a multi-year horizon and an orientation towards cultural cooperation and European research.