Minimal Curation: Minimal Computing for Sustainable Digital Sociocultural Heritage

Minimal Curation is an interdisciplinary research project exploring how low-resource digital technologies can support more sustainable, accessible, and community-led approaches to preserving cultural and social heritage.

The project brings together researchers in digital humanities, human-computer interaction, social research, and sustainable computing from University College Cork and Munster Technological University, working in partnership with cultural and community organisations.

Digital heritage is increasingly central to how communities document their histories, identities, creative practices, and lived experiences, but the systems used to preserve and publish this material can require significant technical expertise, infrastructure, energy, and financial resources. These barriers disproportionately affect smaller arts organisations, community groups, and socially vulnerable or under-resourced communities.

Drawing on the principles of minimal computing, Minimal Curation explores digital curation tools and practices designed to work with simpler infrastructure.

Minimal Curation is funded by Research Ireland through its COALESCE Research for Policy and Society programme.