MetaBelgica

International conference "Shared Heritage, Shared Data" - 18 november 2026 - @KBR, Brussels

How can we collaborate across institutions and domains to curate heritage data? How can authority data, vocabularies and metadata practices be aligned across institutions while respecting institutional autonomy? How can we improve the interoperability, quality and reuse of heritage data and digitised collections? How can a shared linked open data platform such as Wikibase be maintained? 

Over the last three years (2023-2026), four Federal Scientific (heritage) Institutions (FSIs) have worked together within the MetaBelgica project to develop a shared semantic infrastructure that brings together individuals and organisations linked to Belgian heritage collections.

On 18 November 2026, the Royal Library of Belgium, the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage, the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium and the Royal Museums of Art and History are organising the international “Shared Heritage, Shared Data” conference. During the conference, the MetaBelgica partners and other European heritage institutions will share their experiences of managing authority data, among others via Linked Data platforms. They will highlight the best practices and pitfalls encountered along the way.

The conference aims to strengthen cooperation with (inter)national partners and enable more coherent, FAIR and semantically connected access to distributed collections, supporting research and reuse by society.

The conference provides a forum:

  • to collaborate across heritage institutions and domains
  • to share best practices and insights while curating cultural heritage entities
  • to discuss strategic developments and the future of (authority) data management
  • to strengthen professional networks and international cooperation

By hosting this event, the participating FSIs reaffirm their commitment to international collaboration, high-quality and interoperable metadata, and the continued development of expertise in the field of linked data and international standards.

This event is taking place during the week of the DARIAH-EU General Assembly in Brussels and thus there will be an opportunity to follow parallel meetings to learn more about DH projects in Belgium, EOSC & FEDOSC, and AI in the heritage sector from 18 - 20 November. More news will follow in September 2026.

Organisers

  • Royal Library of Belgium (KBR)
  • Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA)
  • Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (KMSKB-MRBAB)
  • Royal Museums of Art and History (KMKG-MRAH)

Funding

This conference is part of the MetaBelgica-project financed by the INFRA-FED call of BELSPO.

Sign up for the conference

Practical information

  • Date: Wednesday 18 november 2026 (09h00 - 16h40)
  • Location: @KBR, Panorama venue (accessible for people with reduced mobility) - This is a hybrid event
  • Price: Registration is free, but mandatory
  • English will be the language of the conference
  • Contact for any further information: metabelgica@kbr.be
  • Recommended hotels near KBR

 

Panorama room @KBR
Source: KBR

Discover the full programme

9:00  Registration 

9:30  Welcoming words 

9:40  MetaBelgica, Welcome from project team and introduction of the day 

9:45  Keynote: Antoine Isaac (Europeana) 

10:30  Break 

11:00 Sven Lieber (Royal Library of Belgium | KBR), MetaBelgica project results 

11:40  Federal Open Science Cloud | FedOSC, FAIR Heritage Data

12:00  Lunch break

13:00  Barbara Fischer (Deutsche Nationalbibliothek | DNB), Sharing authority – How the GND network strives to integrate further communities to enrich its authority files

13:20  Enno Meijers (Dutch Digital Heritage Network | NDE ), Building the network of connected heritage information 

13:40  Axelle Vanmaele (meemoo), Visual Name Authority: a collaborative approach to person identification management

14:00  Luc Wanlin (Archives et Musée de la Littérature | AML), SCAPIN : Technical and institutional challenges for a shared platform of performing arts memory in FWB 

14:20  Edurne Kugeler (Musée national d’archéologie, d’histoire et d’art Luxembourg | MNAHA), 
LUDAP – The Luxembourg Authority File Project  

14:40  Vincent Boulet (Bibliothèque nationale de France | BnF)

15:00  Break 

15:30  Panel discussion with previous speakers 

16:30  Closing remarks 

16:40  End 

17:00  Library closes 

Register for the conference

A shared entity management infrastructure between Federal Scientific Institutes in Belgium

Duration of the project: 2023 > 2026

Project proponents: Hannes Lowagie (KBR), Ann Van Camp (KBR), Sven LIeber (KBR), Julie Brikholz (KBR); Karine Lasaracina (RMFAB), Eva Coudyzer (KIK-IRPA), Els Angenon (RMAH), Marianne Moors (RMAH)

About the project

Federal Scientific Institutes (FSIs) such as the Royal Museums of Art and History  currently inventorise, publish and query their collections in a database or online catalogue with the help of entities, such as names or places: think of structured data about authors or cities.

This kind of data is important for various reasons, but every FSI is creating and maintaining their own entities in their own systems using different programs and data standards.

This is a problem as it results in duplicate efforts and data quality problems. Additionally, this complicates efficient data exchange in a national or international setting due to different standards and tools.

Goals of the project

This project aims to develop MetaBelgica – a Linked Data platform of Belgian entities shared between Belgian Federal Scientific Institutions (FSIs) in the cultural heritage sector. We will integrate millions of Belgian entities from the four participating FSIs, make them accessible in a shared platform and provide persistent identifiers for these entities. Like this, we will provide trustworthy and interoperable reference data of high quality.

We do this by following best practices related to Open Science, Linked Open Data, and FAIR data (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable), for example by reusing Open Source software and Open Licenses for our data.

Regarding the Open Data we produce, we follow the BELSPO mantra of “as open as possible, and as closed as necessary”.

Partners

The MetaBelgica project is financed by the INFRA-FED call of BELSPO: an impulse action call to fostering the development of emerging research infrastructures within federal research institutions.

It results from the cooperation between the following four Federal Scientific Institutes:

  • Royal Library of Belgium (KBR)
  • Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (RMFAB)
  • Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA)
  • Royal Museums for Art and History (KMKG-MRAH)

Follow-up Committee

Throughout the project we stay in dialogue with external national and international experts via a follow-up committee to maximise the impact of the project. Members of this follow-up committee are thematic experts from the following institutions (in alphabetical order):

Updates

We are committed to the Open Science principles. In practice that means that you can find updates on the progress of our report openly on the following platforms:

  • Research data and documents will be published with a DOI on our Zenodo community (in addition to the deposit on the Belgian repositories Orfeo and SODHA).
  • Code and technical specifications will be published via our GitHub organization.
  • You can find general updates via the hashtag #MetaBelgica on different social media platforms, in particular we publish updates via our Mastodon account.

Contacts

For more information about the project you can contact the following responsible colleagues or follow the hashtag #MetaBelgica on social media platforms.

  • KBR

Hannes Lowagie
Ann Van Camp
Sven Lieber
Julie Birkholz

  • RMFAB

Karine Lasaracina

  • KIK-IRPA

Eva Coudyzer

  • RMAH

Els Angenon
Marianne Moors