Since the promotion of the Cultural Democracy model in the 1970s, nations and international organisations, such as the European Union and UNESCO, have been establishing and supporting policies to foster the active, bottom-up involvement of citizens in Culture. This involvement does not only take the conventional form of enjoying imposed cultural products, but it also extends towards cultural creation and, more importantly, towards the political aspect of cultural participation; namely, the governance of Culture, be it cultural or digital heritage, and/or contemporary cultural creation.

Relevant efforts have grown steadily, particularly since the dawn of the 21st century. According to the Council of the European Union, participatory governance of cultural heritage concerns the active involvement of all interested stakeholders (e.g. public authorities and bodies, private actors, civil society organisations, NGOs, the volunteering sector and interested people) in decision-making, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of cultural heritage policies and programmes to increase accountability and transparency of public resource investments as well as to build public trust in policy decisions.

In this framework CUBES aims to support participatory initiatives, by creating and offering open-access, easy-to-use digital educational tools and relevant know-how to every interested citizen and stakeholder, regarding the sustainable administration of culture and cultural heritage!