May 7th, 2026
Harbr has been successful in its tender application and has been awarded the contract to develop the data platform that will underpin the UK’s new Creative Content Exchange (CCE) platform.
The CCE initiative was first announced as part of the Creative Industries Sector Plan in June 2025 and aims to unlock the commercial potential of UK cultural and creative content, digital assets, and datasets through a secure digital marketplace.
The project is currently in its pilot phase which will explore whether the vast amount of assets held by UK cultural and public sector institutions can be commercially viable at scale — including governing how AI developers access this content — while ensuring transparency, fair value exchange, and strong governance.
Hosted in the UK and governed by UK law, the platform will incorporate robust security and auditability. Harbr will deliver the end-to-end platform infrastructure, enabling the secure exchange of multimodal content such as text, images, audio, and video, and more, alongside integrated features for licensing, access controls, billing, and payments. The BETA version launched on 27 April 2026, with the full public launch set for summer 2026.
The pilot is being supported by a number of leading UK cultural organisations and institutions from across GLAM — Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums, with the aim of harnessing and leveraging their wide-range of cultural assets for the benefit of content consumers and producers.
The Creative Content Exchange aims to help standardise how cultural organisations package, control, and licence their data, improving discoverability, embedding auditability, and fostering cross-sector collaboration. The goal is to unlock new, sustainable revenue streams for UK cultural institutions while maintaining oversight and control over their data, content, and assets.
The pilot will test whether commercial value can be unlocked from public and cultural assets, whether fair-value exchanges can be achieved between providers and consumers, and if a scalable and self-sustaining marketplace can be created.
Marvin Reynolds, Chief Customer Officer at Harbr Data, said:
“We built Harbr to solve one of the hardest problems in data sharing: making sensitive, high-value datasets accessible without institutions losing control of them. The Creative Content Exchange is a real-world test of that at scale, and we’re proud to be providing the platform behind it. It’s an important step in changing how public sector data is accessed, valued, and shared across the UK.”
Uli Wingenter-Davey, Interim Project Director at the CCE, said:
“We are delighted to be working with Harbr on this exciting new initiative, turning the Creative Content Exchange from concept to reality. From the outset, unlocking the potential of the incredible wealth of creative and digital assets from the UK’s creative and cultural institutions, and finding the right partner to help us achieve success was vital to the project. We are excited to be working with Harbr in delivering the technical solution for our pilot as a world-leading platform provider.”
Following the pilot, the CCE could evolve beyond the pilot into a scaled marketplace generating sustainable revenue streams for UK cultural institutions while supporting innovation across the creative and technology sectors - and hopefully beyond. By providing the technical backbone for the pilot, Harbr will be central in demonstrating that a secure marketplace can balance commercial opportunity with compliance, security, institutional and commercial trust.
About Harbr Data
Harbr Data is an external data sharing platform that brings consistency, control, and auditability to how organisations share data beyond their boundaries. It gives technical teams a governed way to manage external sharing across complex ecosystems, and gives business users a simpler way to discover, access, and use data products. Harbr is used by leading data businesses such as Moody’s and by regulated organisations managing external data sharing at scale.
About the CCE
The Creative Content Exchange is a UK government-backed initiative that aims to bring together UK-based creative content owners and businesses looking to use the wealth and range of digital assets the UK’s cultural institutions hold in their collections and archives.
In June 2025, the UK Government published the Creative Industries Sector Plan, setting out their vision for the UK creative sector and making a commitment to establishing a Creative Content Exchange (CCE). The intention is for the CCE to be a trusted marketplace enabling access and licensing to digitised cultural and creative assets held by the UK’s cultural institutions and organisations.
You can read more on the CCE website at: www.thecce.co.uk
Contact the CCE team at hello@thecce.co.uk
