Good practice:

Prisma Västra Götaland – cooperation platform on industrial cultural heritage

In VGR there are many actors working with industrial heritage. Most of them are non-profit associations or private actors. They do not have enough contact with public actors such as museums or decision makers in the field of culture and even less contact with tourism actors. Museums and cultural institutions do not have sufficient anchoring in the hundreds of places with extensive local knowledge that attract large numbers of visitors every year.
Prisma VG was created to be a common collaboration platform where the work of the parties is coordinated and they benefit from each other's strengths. Prisma VG also has the stated goal of strengthening the sustainable small-scale tourism on industrial history sites.
Early in the pilot project one identified the need to strengthen the presence in digital channels. Therefore, a digital platform has been built www.prismavg.se where stories and information about the industrial community's cultural heritage are gathered in Västra Götaland.
Since stories are the basis of the development of today's cultural tourism, one hopes to play an important role as a source of knowledge for the tourism industry.
Västarvet have used Prisma VG as an implementation channel within the CHRISTA project. The steering group has been one of the stakeholder groups. Another more operational stakeholder group has been 13 industrial history museums with the ambition to play a role in the tourism industry.

The cultural board of Region Västra Götaland financed a three-year development project with a total of 250 000 Euro. Following the end of the project, the region finances a service as coordinator / developer responsible for maintaining the platform.

The most important effect is that actors from different parts of the cultural heritage sector (public,civil) cooperate and coordinate their actions.
The digital platform works as a common channel for all actors, continuously updating new stories, pictures and visitor information about industrial sites.
There have also been joint activities f.ex; In the summer of 2018 a sailing ship squadron was organized in Lake Vänern for two weeks with program in different ports.

It is a challenge to coordinate so many players. Public and nonprofit organizations work differently and at different speeds. It demands that you respect each other. Prisma VG is just a network - no organistation which is both an advantage and a disadvantage.

In Sweden, a lot of work in society is organized through non-profit associations. It is important for public actors to cooperate with these to get more local anchoring. The non-profit actors need to cooperate more with public actors if they want to be part of regional development in, for example, tourism development.
Digitization means opportunities but requires a new way of working in the cultural heritage. We need to develop common digital interfaces between cultural actors and tourism industry. In Prisma VG, all players can be gathered behind common goals and coordinate their activities to get the greatest possible impact.
Developing cross-sectoral cooperation and multi-level cooperation is an important strategic contribution to regional development in Västra Götaland and in EU in general. The civil society is an important actor in this cooperation.
The good practice of the cooperation platform Prisma VG is used by the CHRISTA-partner Granada County Council in a pilot action.