8 Impact Areas

Lifelong learning and the development of a "knowledge society" is an area that, in some ways, is complementary to that of new business models. Several analyses prove the deep relationship between cultural participation and propensity for continuous learning, with the consequent development of a better adaptive intelligence to the environmental context (Sacco & Teti, 2017). Active cultural participation, supported by the digital possibilities, can itself be understood as a training tool, leading to higher levels of not only knowledge, but also economic efficiency, productivity, and problem-solving skills; so we can say that investing in lifelong learning cultural activities is also a good investment from a financial point of view. Digital active participation in the cultural sphere keeps learning alive far beyond school, and generates intergenerational connections and knowledge interchange: indeed, art and digital can change behaviours and foster collective practices inside institutes but also outside, in everyday life. Open, user-friendly and collective digital contexts support inheriting or re-inventing old practices, enabling paths of collective cultural memory enrichment and maintenance for future generations. CHIs and Cultural organisations have an important role to play in facilitating lifelong learning: many children and young people globally do not have access to adequate educational resources and digital cultural heritage can help to alleviate this issue. This is also true in terms of creative, cultural and intellectual activity: indeed, lifelong learning, museums and digital technologies share many of the same attributes, with emphasis on learning from objects (rather than about objects) and on strategies for discovering information (rather than the information itself). From the major national museums to heritage organisations and other institutions, we can see several different approaches, from encyclopaedias to games, that actively encourage participation in knowledge creation (Hawkey, 2004).