The Cultural Heritage (CH) sector in European Union countries is a crucial economic and social resource. Despite its significance, many CH institutions struggle to achieve financial sustainability and engage diverse audiences. AHEAD addresses this by introducing innovative approaches centered around audience development, marketing, and sustainable business models.

Cultural Heritage (CH) is a crucial economic and social resource for EU countries. However, most CH institutions underperform financially in generating economic sustainability and local growth, and socially in widening access and participation to new audiences and local communities. The main reasons are a)low levels of entrepreneurial and audience-centred skills, b) lack of an established work practice of participatory audience development and audience-centered experience design, c) traditional resistance among some CH professionals to adopt new audience-centered and marketing practices.

AHEAD (Accessible Heritage Experience for Audience Development) impact vision is to increase the understanding that if we apply human-centered approaches, learning by doing, impact, and data-driven methodologies in the CH sector, we can innovate the working practices and empower the sector to become more relevant for our communities, more financially sustainable and able to create opportunities for social, cultural and economic growth.