ODEUROPA · Project

AI Tools That Help Museums and Heritage Sites Use Smell to Boost Visitor Engagement

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Imagine walking into a museum and actually smelling the perfume a queen wore in the 1600s, or the stench of an old harbor. This project trained AI to dig through four centuries of European paintings, books, and archives to find every reference to smell — what people sniffed, where, and how it made them feel. They organized all of this into a searchable database and built tools that let museums create smell-based exhibits. Think of it as Google for historical scents, plus a practical playbook for making museums more immersive.

By the numbers

4 centuries

Historical coverage of European olfactory data analyzed by AI

8 partners

Research organizations across the consortium

6 countries

European countries represented in the project

Total deliverables produced by the project

EUR 2,807,780

EU funding for developing olfactory heritage AI tools

2 open-source demonstrators

Public-facing tools built on the Olfactory Knowledge Graph

The business problem

What needed solving

Museums and heritage sites compete fiercely for visitors but most exhibits rely only on sight and sound, missing the most emotionally powerful sense — smell. Until now, there was no structured data or standardized methodology for incorporating historical scents into cultural experiences, leaving a gap between what science knows about sensory engagement and what institutions actually offer.

The solution

What was built

The project built a European Olfactory Knowledge Graph (EOKG) using semantic web standards, AI-powered text mining and computer vision tools to extract smell references from historical texts and images, two open-source public demonstrators (Olfactory Knowledge Explorer and a serious game), Jupyter-based image retrieval tools, an Olfactory Storytelling Toolkit, and a policy paper with heritage recommendations — 33 deliverables in total.

Audience

Who needs this

Museum directors and exhibition designers seeking immersive multi-sensory experiencesScent marketing agencies needing historically grounded olfactory narrativesHeritage tourism operators designing differentiated visitor experiencesFragrance companies looking for cultural storytelling around historical scentsDigital humanities platforms integrating sensory data into cultural archives

Business applications

Who can put this to work

Museums & Cultural Heritage

any

Target: Museum operators and exhibition designers

If you are a museum or exhibition designer struggling with flat visitor numbers and forgettable exhibits — this project developed an Olfactory Storytelling Toolkit and open-source demonstrators that let you build multi-sensory experiences backed by 4 centuries of historical scent data. The European Olfactory Knowledge Graph gives you a searchable catalogue of documented smells, their cultural contexts, and emotions they triggered, so you can design evidence-based immersive exhibits instead of guessing.

Fragrance & Cosmetics

mid-size

Target: Fragrance houses and scent marketing agencies

If you are a fragrance company or scent marketing agency looking for historically authentic scent stories to differentiate your products — this project catalogued and structured olfactory references from across 6 European countries using AI text mining and computer vision. The knowledge graph and image retrieval tools let you trace specific scents through history and attach verified cultural narratives to product lines or branded experiences.

Tourism & Experience Design

SME

Target: Heritage tourism operators and destination marketers

If you are a tourism operator trying to make heritage destinations more memorable — this project built policy recommendations and a practical heritage toolkit with methodologies that quantify the impact of multi-sensory visitor engagement. With 33 deliverables including storytelling toolkits and interactive demonstrators, you can design olfactory walking tours or site experiences grounded in real historical data rather than gimmicks.

Frequently asked

Quick answers

What would it cost to use these tools in my museum or business?

The demonstrators (Olfactory Knowledge Explorer, serious game application) were released as open source, meaning no licensing fees for the software itself. Integration costs would depend on your exhibition scale and whether you need physical scent diffusion hardware, which is outside the scope of this project. Based on available project data, the toolkits and methodologies are freely accessible.

Can this work at industrial scale for a chain of museums or a large tourism network?

The European Olfactory Knowledge Graph (EOKG) was built on semantic web standards, which means it is designed to be interoperable and scalable across institutions. The project covered data from 6 countries and 4 centuries, so the underlying dataset is substantial. However, scaling would require integration work — the current outputs are research demonstrators, not turnkey commercial products.

Who owns the intellectual property? Can I license or adapt the tools?

The project was funded under Horizon 2020 as a Research and Innovation Action (RIA), coordinated by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). The demonstrators were published as open source. Specific IP terms for the knowledge graph and toolkits should be clarified directly with the consortium, but RIA projects typically retain IP with the partners while making results openly available.

Is the technology ready to deploy, or is it still experimental?

The project delivered working demonstrators including Jupyter-based image retrieval tools, an Olfactory Knowledge Explorer, and a serious game application. These are functional prototypes, not commercial products. The Olfactory Storytelling Toolkit and Policy Paper provide actionable methodologies, but physical implementation in exhibition spaces would require additional engineering.

What evidence exists that multi-sensory exhibits actually improve visitor engagement?

The project specifically developed new evidence-based methodologies to quantify the impact of multi-sensory visitor engagement. The Olfactory Heritage Toolkit includes future-oriented recommendations for sensory heritage policies and practices. Based on available project data, the measurement tools were developed as part of the 33 deliverables but specific engagement uplift numbers are not provided in the project summary.

Does the AI work with content in my language?

The consortium spans 6 countries (Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Slovenia, UK), and the text mining tools were designed to retrieve olfactory information from text across multiple languages and time periods. The demonstrators handle text-based access to olfactory information including context, temporal analysis, and emotion mapping. Specific language support details should be confirmed with the project team.

Consortium

Who built it

This is a purely academic consortium: all 8 partners across 6 countries are universities (5) or research institutes (3), with zero industry participants and zero SMEs. The coordinator is the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). For a business buyer, this means the outputs are research-grade tools and methodologies — scientifically rigorous but not commercially packaged. Any company wanting to adopt these tools should expect integration work and would benefit from partnering directly with the research teams who built them, rather than looking for an off-the-shelf product.

KONINKLIJKE NEDERLANDSE AKADEMIE VAN WETENSCHAPPEN - KNAWCoordinator · NL
FRIEDRICH-ALEXANDER-UNIVERSITAET ERLANGEN-NUERNBERGparticipant · DE
ANGLIA RUSKIN UNIVERSITYparticipant · UK
INSTITUT JOZEF STEFANparticipant · SI
UNIVERSITY OF YORKparticipant · UK
FONDAZIONE BRUNO KESSLERparticipant · IT
EURECOM GIEparticipant · FR
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDONparticipant · UK

How to reach the team

KNAW (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences), Netherlands — contact via project website odeuropa.eu

Order a report on this consortium See KONINKLIJKE NEDERLANDSE AKADEMIE VAN WETENSCHAPPEN - KNAW profile →

Next steps

Talk to the team behind this work.

Want to explore how olfactory heritage tools could enhance your museum exhibits or tourism experiences? SciTransfer can connect you with the ODEUROPA research team and help assess fit for your specific use case.

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