Glashelder phase 2 and 3 approved by the Flemish government

To extend the project for an additional two years (2027–2028), the Glashelder team worked hard in early 2026 on the supplementary grant application to the Flemish government, in which we addressed previous feedback and concerns. This effort clearly paid off, as the continued funding has been approved by the Flemish government. The evaluators describe our project as “an asset to the cultural heritage sector in terms of content, methodology, and societal impact,” and emphasize the importance of our goals to explicitly focus on “sharing methods, guidelines, and best practices with other heritage institutions. The expertise we have built up regarding the ethical and responsible use of AI in heritage contexts contributes to sector-wide innovation and knowledge development.”

In the second and third phase, starting in November 2026, we will continue our work with great enthusiasm by focusing, among other things, on:

• Acquiring methodological expertise in automatic enrichment (based on thematic subcategories such as topography, animals, plants, objects, people, scenes, etc.) and sharing it with the sector.

• Gaining insight into the automatic reproduction of bias embedded in sensitive heritage collections, with a focus on medical and colonial heritage.

• Further validating automatic enrichment through a participatory validation environment.

• Incorporating insights from collection-managing (heritage) institutions regarding the rollout of the tools we have developed.

• Develop a policy framework regarding the use of AI in heritage documentation and research.

With the start of phase 2 and three, we not only rely on old partners but also many new ones. We will work together in a variety of ways with: 

• Ghent Centre for Digital Humanities 
• Gents Universiteitsmuseum (GUM)
• Meemoo, Vlaams instituut voor het archief
• Amsab-ISG
• Design Museum Gent
• ADVN
• IGA Poperinge-Vleteren
• FOMU
• DIVA