City Case Description: Tallinn & Cultural Heritage Organisations as Innovation Leaders

How does “prototyping” work?

This City Case Description is the outcome of a policy prototyping exercise within a city ecosystem.
Once the ekip research team has explored a policy area and its connection to cultural and creative
industries (CCIs) and innovation, we ask: what would this mean in a local city context?

Together with local stakeholders, we test how a draft policy recommendation might stimulate innovation. Using Portfolio Sensemaking, stakeholders simulate an innovation portfolio, analyse the strengths and gaps of the local support system, and identify what resources are needed to realise the portfolio.

Tallin Context & Area of Focus

Estonia’s cultural heritage organisations are highly digitized but underused as active spaces for societal dialogue. There’s a growing need to connect science, culture, and public engagement — especially around climate change, sustainability, and social cohesion. While the national government supports digitalization, there’s no framework for creative use of technologies (AI, VR) in cultural or educational contexts.

Innovation here is driven by bottom-up institutional creativity (museums, universities) within a policy vacuum that lacks dedicated funding and coordination.

The challenge is to transform digital heritage from a static archive into a dynamic platform for futures thinking. Education and cultural sectors remain fragmented. Current systems are project based and short-term, with interoperability and copyright challenges blocking broader use.

The innovation emerges in a national context of strong digital potential but weak sectoral integration, where libraries could become bridging institutions linking CH data, schools, and lifelong learning ecosystems.