OpenMusE

After three years of intensive research and an EU investment of nearly €10 million, the OpenMusE project, alongside its sister initiatives Fair Muse and Music360, transitioned from research to action. Key results of the project are the suite of data dashboards available on the openmuse.eu website and a policy roundtable in Brussels, where the Open Music Cluster projects presented their vision for evidence-based policy-making. As the project concluded, significant progress had been made towards the objective of ensuring that music ecosystems are visible and valued within the European Union’s official frameworks.

Data for Policy: A Strategic Alignment

The project’s guiding principle “Data for policy” comes at a critical juncture. In 2025, the European Commission released the “Culture Compass for Europe”, which sets a concrete timeline for the future of cultural governance. Along with its sister projects, OpenMusE presented core recommendations. These include integrating music dataspaces into the EU Cultural Data Hub and creating standing mechanisms for music stakeholder participation in EU policy-making. The event in Brussels also highlighted the project’s results and learnings aimed at embedding music data into these infrastructures now, to avoid another decade of “music invisibility” in official statistics. By providing open-source software, methodological protocols, and representative surveys, the project has developed crucial contributions in the interest of launching a European Data Hub.

The OpenMusE Dashboards: Research in Action

A central legacy of the project is the suite of data dashboards available on the openmuse.eu website. These tools translate complex research into accessible, interactive formats for policy makers and industry stakeholders. The Live Music Census Dashboard presents findings from a coordinated study conducted on October 11, 2024, across Heidelberg, Mannheim, Helsinki, Vilnius, and Lviv. It captures the diversity of performances (from church choirs to stadium concerts) and tracks audience spending and travel distances. The Live Music Maps, an additional module created on the basis of the Live Music Census, provide a geographical overview and key data for 280 venues, identifying local music hubs and providing essential data for citizens, city planners, and music industry stakeholders alike.

The Cultural Access and Participation Dashboard display results from a 2025 survey with 5.000 respondents across Germany, Poland, France, Italy, and Spain. The data explores how people experience music in everyday life, focusing on music discovery, education, and the sociocultural factors that shape engagement. Designed for research and policy questions, the dashboard allows users to filter results by country and theme to identify and compare patterns across the European landscape. Both data dashboards offer the survey data as free downloads, underscoring the project’s aim to make data open and easily accessible.

OpenMusE Publications and Online Resources

While the project is officially concluded, the consortium’s commitment to fostering a more competitive, transparent, and fair European music ecosystem continues. A vast array of project results, including scientific publications, open-source datasets, the Open Music Europe Podcast, and the interactive data dashboards, remain available for exploration on the openmuse.eu website.

Links

OpenMusE Website:

https://www.openmuse.eu/

Live Music Census Dashboard:

https://www.openmuse.eu/live-music-census/

Live Music Maps:

https://www.openmuse.eu/live-music-maps/

Cultural Access and Participation Dashboard:

https://www.openmuse.eu/cultural-access-and-participation/

Keywords

Evidence-based, cultural policy, music ecosystem, music research, music data