The "EurViews" collection integrated in "WorldViews" is based on a pilot project of the Georg Eckert Institute, which was funded by the Lower Saxon Ministry of Science and Culture. For the project, textbook extracts were collected which convey the ideas and concepts of Europe and Europeanity that were taught to students from the 19th century on in the so-called "meaningful subjects" (especially history, geography, politics, and social studies).

The "EurViews" collection developed in a modular way. After initially focusing on the countries of the "Weimar Triangle" (France, Germany, and Poland) in a smaller study, sample surveys were then carried out in the enlarged European and, last but not least, non-European space with the help of a multidisciplinary cooperation network of scientists from various regions. As early as July 2014 textbook excerpts of formats as different as pictures, graphics, maps, and author texts or documents recorded in textbooks were presented as digital copies for the online version of the alpha version of “EurViews.” Forewords and tables of contents as well as the textbook pages framing the selected excerpts were added. In order to make the textual sections accessible for research, education, and politics, translations into German and English were provided. Contextualising scientific commentaries discuss the selection of excerpts and provide interpretations of the material. From the outset, the aim of the edition was to offer textbook excerpts as searchable full texts. However, the technical framework used at first proved unsuitable for a reliable reproduction of non-Latin writing.

In order to adapt the technique of compiling, storing, reproducing, searching, and finding the collected materials to fit the new requirements of the digital humanities, the research data were transferred to an efficient technical infrastructure as part of the project "WorldViews" (BMBF funding 2015-2017). They will thus be available in standardised formats in the future. Taking into account the respective licensing conditions, individual researchers, but also larger research infrastructures such as CLARIN-D are able to use the materials via interfaces.

The project "EurViews" strives to create awareness of the limitations of people's personal views and to highten their sensitivity in respect to the plurality of memories, self-perception, and external perceptions. By not only depicting representations of books from the core countries of the European Union or countries politically associated with it, the aim was to prevent a European navel-gazing, resulting in a simple confirmation of one’s own suppositions. Building on current research in the field of transnational, global, and postcolonial studies, the project seeks to enable researchers to question their research agendas and, if required, to develop cooperative, culture-sensitive formats to further a confluence of different academic disciplines.