Michael Culture Association participated to the annual ENCATC Academy 2026 as a key partner and trainer. 

The ENCATC Academy on Sustainable Cultural Management and Policy is an ENCATC flagship initiative that empowers cultural professionals, educators, researchers, and policymakers to take proactive steps in integrating sustainability within their organisations and across the cultural and creative sectors (CCS). Designed to equip participants with the knowledge and skills needed for the triple transformation, green, social, and digital, the Academy also aims to prepare organisations to respond to emerging challenges in the green transition. Beginning 2026, MCA is a key partner of this initiative.

Set in the vibrant city of Bilbao, this year’s Academy welcomed 40+ participants and focused on the sustainable transformation of the cultural sector, with the final day dedicated specifically to the digital world and cybersecurity. MCA Policy Manager Marco Fiore led a session on digital transformation, highlighting the findings of the report “Digital Maturity of GLAMs,” published in 2025. One of the key takeaways from the session was that digital transformation in cultural institutions and organizations must be guided by a clear understanding of the community’s needs: before embarking on a transformation process, it is therefore advisable to assess internal objectives and priorities.

The second lecture presented by MCA was titled “Considerations on AI and Cultural Heritage”: by examining the risks and opportunities of the (sometimes indiscriminate) application of these technologies, we analyzed the issues of agency and governance where the sector can and must take action, particularly within the political and legislative context of the European Union.

Michael Culture Association recently published a “Recommendation for the AI strategy for the cultural and creative sectors” together with Culture Action Europe, addressed to the European Commission. You can access it here.

In addition, Emanuele Bellini, Associate Professor at the University of Roma Tre and Director of the Master in Cyber Humanities for Heritage Security, animated a lecture about “Cybersecurity in the cultural sphere and the role of the Cyber Humanist”. From the British Library to the Louvre, cyberattacks on cultural institutions have surged in recent years, exposing a deeply fragile ecosystem. Professor Bellini argues that museums, libraries and archives carry a dangerous false sense of security: digitisation widens their attack surface while legacy systems and tight budgets leave them dangerously exposed. The stakes go far beyond service disruption. Mid- and long-term consequences include eroded public trust, altered historical narratives, and the silent poisoning of collective memory, including the datasets feeding AI language models. Yet cultural heritage remains conspicuously absent from EU cybersecurity legislation. Bellini’s response is the emerging field of Cyber Humanities: a transdisciplinary discipline fusing ICT expertise with humanities knowledge to build genuinely resilient cultural infrastructures and treat them, at last, as the critical infrastructure they truly are.

Closing the day, NEMO presented their actions in the field of digital and AI, with 2 upcoming reports on how AI is applied and lived through the museum perspective.

Overall, the ENCATC Academy 2026 has been a delightful experience for both trainers and students, with the ENCATC team and all the partners ensuring the smooth success and facilitating new and needed conversations.