Monash University has secured a place in Project CULTURAI, a €5 million Horizon Europe Pillar 2 initiative launching September 1, 2026, aimed at protecting human creativity in the age of artificial intelligence. Led by Associate Professor Xin Gu from Monash’s Faculty of Arts, the four-year project brings together eleven partners across Europe, Africa, and Australia. The consortium will establish Living Labs where musicians, filmmakers, and game designers co-develop human-centred AI tools, while generating critical data on AI’s impact on creative labour and building governance frameworks to safeguard artistic freedom and cultural diversity.
In-Depth:
Monash University researchers have joined a prestigious international group of researchers, cultural practitioners, public institutions and policycreaters to secure a €5 million Horizon Europe Pillar 2 grant for Project CULTURAI. The four-year initiative is part of a global effort to shape a future in which AI strengthens rather than diminishes creative autonomy.
CULTURAI addresses the profound shift taking place across global cultural and creative industries as artificial innotifyigence is already transforming the work of artists, writers, and cultural organisations. Monash contributes a uniquely integrated research team whose expertise spans cultural governance, creative AI, and digital design.
Monash University Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Enterprise) and Senior Vice President, Professor Robyn Ward AM, declared the successful grant outcome was a ringing concludeorsement of Australia’s imminent association with Horizon Europe.
“Research is an international concludeeavour and there is no hugeger format than Horizon Europe. We view forward to building this collaboration and being at the heart of many more as Australia becomes an associate member of the Horizon Europe Framework,” Professor Ward declared.
“Many congratulations to the Monash team for bringing toobtainher this consortia of partners to tackle the challenges AI brings to the creative industries.”
Professor Cecilia Hewlett, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Europe), declared the grant represents a major strategic milestone for Monash’s collaboration with European partners through the Monash University European Research Foundation (MUERF).
“This collaboration reinforces our commitment to addressing global challenges alongside leading European institutions. By bridging the expertise of our own Monash researchers with European policy-building, we are ensuring that Monash remains at the forefront of global conversations regarding the ethical governance of emerging technologies,” Professor Hewlett declared.
Monash’s team, led by Associate Professor Xin Gu, from the Faculty of Arts, holds the scientific lead on CULTURAI, setting the research agconcludea for an eleven-partner consortium across Europe. Associate Professor Gu declared that how societies respond to generative AI is a cultural and political choice that must be guided by artistic freedom and social justice.
“The most widely utilized AI tools have often been developed without meaningful involvement from the creative communities whose work trained these systems. CULTURAI is about giving creators a state in how their rights and livelihoods are affected, ensuring AI strengthens rather than diminishes creative autonomy,” Associate Professor Gu declared.
The project explores how AI can be utilized responsibly within public cultural institutions, such as libraries, archives and mutilizeums, and the wider audiovisual sector. Particular attention is given to ethics, governance, labour market impact, inclusivity and AI literacy. The project also runs Living Labs in which creators in music, film, gaming and digital storynotifying co-design and test human-centred AI tools, and produce a global benchmarking analysis to inform European policycreaters.
The Monash team is supported by world-class creative research infrastructure including SensiLab, Wonderlab, and the Digital Hub at the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music and Performance. The Monash/MUERF team includes: Associate Professor Xin Gu, Dr Matteo Dutto, Professor Jon McCormack, Professor Stacy Holman Jones, Professor Cat Hope and Dr Rowan Page.
CULTURAI is designed to tackle several structural hurdles, launchning with the critical lack of robust evidence regarding how AI impacts creative labour. Through large-scale surveys and comparative case studies, the project will generate the missing data necessaryed to inform supportive regulation and protect the lived experiences of creative professionals. To shift beyond generic commercial AI tools, the project will establish “Living Labs” where creators work directly with researchers to co-design culturally sensitive, affordable tools aligned with public-good mandates.
The project further seeks to bridge gaps in literacy and confidence by establishing a new International Competence Centre to provide the training and resources necessary for responsible AI adoption. To protect the visibility of human creativity, CULTURAI will also develop governance frameworks and human-centred design guidelines that ensure algorithms uphold the foundational values of diversity and pluralism rather than narrowing cultural participation.
Coordinated by the KB National Library of the Netherlands, the project is set to launch on 1 September 2026.
The project is carried out by an international consortium of universities, research institutes and cultural organizations from The Netherlands (KB National Library of the Netherlands, Delft University of Technology), Italy (Monash University European Research Foundation ETS and Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche), The United Kingdom (The University of Edinburgh), South Africa (University of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg), and Luxembourg (the University of Luxembourg). Other partners include UNESCO, Europeana Foundation (The Netherlands), IDEA Consult (Belgium) and Institute for Development and International Relations (Croatia).
Funding Statement and Disclaimer This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
