The Ministry of Cultural Heritage of Italy has set up the MINERVA Project in the EU RTD Framework Program. This project was enlarged as part of the MINERVA Plus initiative,  approved by the European Commission in the 6FP, and launched 9-10 February 2004. The Ministry of Science and Technology of Israel and the Jewish Agency are partners in MINERVA Plus. They have set a joint forum for steering the project with the participation of all Statutory Institutions in Israel with responsibilities in the area of Cultural Heritage.
The aim of MINERVA is to create a network of Member States' Ministries to discuss, correlate and harmonise activities carried out in digitisation of cultural and scientific content. It will create an agreed European common platform, recommendations and guidelines about digitisation, metadata, long-term accessibility and preservation. MINERVA identifies and integrates best practices in a pan-European framework, to facilitate the adoption of the Lund action plan.