Strategic perspectives

What is it?

The Strategic Perspectives help you understand what problem you are trying to solve and where you think you can have most impact. It’s a tool you can use in discussions with colleagues and to help shape your change pathway and impact assessment.

Some projects are explicitly geared to contribute positively to society. Others are designed to lead to an economic effect. Most will have a bit of everything - you might note that organisational innovation also leads to economic effects and that external innovation leads to better environmental impact. The tool draws from the Balanced Value Impact Model, which sets out that our investments and actions in digital cultural heritage should have a balanced return. The Strategic Perspectives help you keep this in mind.

How do I use it?

You will need to think about which perspective(s) will be most dominant in your impact assessment or activity that you are planning. This will influence the types of questions that you will ask and how you will report the findings. You can use the tool as a discussion prompt to help your colleagues think about the impact that they have or want to have through their work, emerging with a problem statement outlining what you are trying to address with your activities.

When can I use it?

In Phase one, you can use the Strategic Perspectives tool in a workshop setting. You might also want to use it later to shape your impact narrative or to evaluate your impact approach. The strategic perspectives canvas has been updated and now has five different impact areas you can discuss to think about your impact.

The strategic perspectives

Open

The revised strategic perspectives (2023)

Social impact

Open

Social impact occurs when people (our stakeholders), their communities and wider society experience a positive change in their behaviour, attitude or belief because of the things that we do for them, or when actions are taken to improve the inclusivity and accessibility of a service or activity.

For example, the restoration and preservation of built heritage can lead to increased civic participation and feelings of local pride, and digitisation can create a sense of a connection to heritage in different locations. Read more in the impact assessment of the Fondation du Patrimoine.

Economic impact

Economic impact occurs when our activities deliver economic benefits to stakeholders or to the organization.

For example, digitisation efforts can lead to new research opportunities which in turn lead to economic impact. Take a look at the economic impact assessment conducted by the Natural History Museum.

Innovation impact

Innovation impact occurs when our work to provide access to digital cultural heritage enables innovations which lead to a positive change, economic benefits or operational efficiency in our stakeholders.

For example, the actions of EuropeanaTech brought the possibilities of IIIF beyond national institutions in the UK to a much wider group of museums, creating innovation impact for them in the application of the standard. Read the EuropeanaTech and IIIF impact assessment.

Operational impact

Operational impact occurs when the process of providing access to digital cultural heritage leads to innovations which in turn lead to an improvement or refinement of internal processes.

For example, taking part in the Europe at Work project led to a new way of working for some organisations involved, and they are likely to use the skills gained and the approach of the heritage collection day in future work. Read more in the Europe at Work impact assessment.

Environmental impact

Environmental impact relates to both the (negative) impact of an activity (which can be expressed, for example, in terms of a carbon footprint) or the (positive) impact of an activity that mitigates against negative climate impact.

For example, an online activity might result in lower carbon emissions. Read the Europeana 2020 impact assessment to see how much lower the digital carbon footprint of the conference was compared to what a full, in-person event might have been.