At its meeting in Brussels on 25 November 2014, the Council of the European Union, under the leadership of the Italian Presidency, adopted Conclusions on participatory governance of cultural heritage, inviting Member States to promote a more active involvement of civil society and of the private sector in the governance of cultural heritage, at local, regional, national and European levels. On this occasion, cultural heritage was also set as one of the priorities of the new Work Plan for Culture for 2015-2018.

“Culture and tourism should constitute priorities for Europe and investment in these sectors is strategic for growth and development. The presidency’s view was shared by all ministers at our informal meeting in Turin, and today’s Council paved the way to giving culture and tourism a central role in EU policy-making,” declared the President of the Council, Minister Franceschini.

The Conclusions on participatory governance of cultural heritage highlight that the involvement of all interested parties in decision-making, planning, implementing, monitoring and evaluating cultural heritage policies and programmes can increase public awareness of the values that it represents, reinforce transparency and accountability in the use of public resources, and build trust between citizens and public authorities. Alongside tangible and intangible heritage, the Conclusions underline that digital heritage can be used for the development of innovative services, such as Europeana. They also explore synergies between the culture and tourism sectors. The Conclusions also include an invitation to the European Commission to propose a “European Year of Cultural Heritage”.

At the same meeting, the EU Council also adopted Conclusions establishing a Work Plan for Culture (2015-2018), which sets four priority areas: accessible culture, cultural heritage, creative economy and innovation, and cultural diversity. These are complemented by two cross-sectorial themes: digital shift and statistics. The plan is a strategic document setting out the priorities for European cooperation in cultural policy-making for the next four years, focusing on topics that represent a clear EU added value and encourage cross-sectorial cooperation.

Furthermore, ministers debated on the contribution of cultural and creative sectors, including cultural heritage, to the Europe 2020 objectives, in the context of the mid-term review of the strategy. It was stressed that culture represents around 4% of EU PIB and contributes to growth through innovation, the digital economy, employment and youth policy, industrial policy and resource efficiency and is in turn affected by decisions in other policy areas. Most ministers emphasized that the EU’s cultural and creative sectors give Europe a competitive advantage over the rest of the world since they benefit from something that is unique to Europe: an extraordinarily rich and diverse cultural heritage.

On 16 October in the framework of the 4^th CHCFE Steering Committee meeting, project partners the International Cultural Centre (ICC) from Poland and the Raymond Lemaire International Center for Conservation (RLICC) in Belgium presented their progress on mapping and analysing the multiple benefits of Europe’s cultural heritage and to discuss the project’s draft report.

Among the main findings so-far by the two teams is an indication of an important geographical imbalance in the studies and research collected. The country that has produced the most extensive research in the field of cultural heritage impact is the United Kingdom. Due to historical reasons there is also a clear difference in the interest and number of studies undertaken between Western and Central Europe with more research found in the West of Europe.

Apart from the UK, mapping of existing research in Europe (even in one of the most obvious fields of heritage impact which is the economy) proves to be a bit disappointing as a relatively large number of reports, studies and documents take heritage’s influence on the economy, society, culture and environment for granted adorning texts with superficial statements of a dogmatic character and intuitive remarks. In the field of impact on economics the most frequently researched subjects are the impact on the labour market and tourism, followed by heritage and the real estate market. However, judging by the bibliographies of the articles and reports there are only a handful of experts in Europe who deal with the economic impact and are quoted in most of these texts. The findings also reveal a significant lack of research done on cultural heritage’s impact on the development of cultural resources and historical value that have only merely been signaled in the literature; while the impact on identity, symbolic value, attractiveness and image, as well as education have been covered much more extensively.

The analysis of European research indicates that many studies tend to not only take the idea of heritage’s multiple benefits for granted, but often use this assumption as the starting point of the research instead of inquiring as a first step whether heritage has any impact and as a second, whether this impact is beneficial or detrimental. In further research, the overall aim should be to obtain a less biased approach and acquire a balanced proportion between attentions attributed to each of the four domains (economic, society, culture and environment) towards sustainable development. In the future, additional attention needs to be focused on a hybrid, collaborative research, combining quantitative and qualitative (participatory as well as non-participatory) methods, to bridge some of the existing gaps in the research.

The final report and its recommendations will be publicly presented on 12 June 2015 in Oslo on the occasion of the Europa Nostra Annual Congress 2015.

Cultural Heritage Counts for Europe PowerPoint Slides 1
Presented on 16 October 2014 in Krakow by the International Cultural Centre

Cultural Heritage Counts for Europe PowerPoint Slides 2
Presented on 16 October 2014 in Krakow by the Raymond Lemaire International Center for Conservation

The Raymond Lemaire International Centre for Conservation (RLICC), a partner of the Cultural Heritage Counts for Europe project, is organising a Thematic Week “Heritage Counts” from 3-6 February 2015 in Leuven, Belgium.

The idea of immovable heritage as a “capital of irreplaceable cultural, social and economic value” was already present in the European Charter of the Architectural Heritage, adopted by the Council of Europe in 1975. Today, the discourse is receiving increasingly more attention on the research agenda. Some argue that, although heritage is always valued highly, the current interest in the impact of heritage is caused by the democratization of heritage and the increased importance of heritage in today’s society. Others argue that a universal scarcity of funds for heritage management and conservation is becoming increasingly pertinent.

The 2015 Thematic Week of the Raymond Lemaire International Centre for Conservation,  deals with the economic, social, environmental and cultural impact of immovable heritage. The aim is to provide an international overview of discourse, strategies and case studies. Theoretical reflections and best practices will be dealt with according to thematic sessions in order to highlight potentialities, gained advantages and difficulties encountered in the different steps of measuring the impact of immovable heritage. In order to gather and present this insight, RLICC invites academics, researchers and heritage stakeholders to respond to the conference’s “Heritage Counts” Call for Papers (deadline 1 December 2014).

For more information on the Thematic Week and to register, see:  http://sprecomah.eu/rlicc/.

This edition of the Thematic Week grew out of the valorisation actions implemented within the Cultural Heritage Counts for Europe project, funded by the EU Culture Programme (2007-2013). The opening day of the Thematic Week will be co-organised by the lead partner of this project, EUROPA NOSTRA, and will bring together European policymakers and international researchers involved in cultural heritage.

The fourth Steering Committee meeting of the CHCFE project took place on 16 October in Krakow. Hosted by CHCFE partner, the International Cultural Centre, 12 representatives of the six project partners were in attendance. The purpose of this meeting was to have progress reports from the two teams responsible for mapping and analysing the multiple benefits of Europe’s cultural heritage and to discuss the project’s draft report and recommendations.

Since the beginning of the year, teams from the International Cultural Centre (ICC) in Poland and the Raymond Lemaire International Center for Conservation (RLICC) in Belgium have been collecting existing evidence on the impact of cultural heritage in Europe through extensive desk research, contributions from the heritage sector via an online survey, and by working with national experts in 11 countries. Now in the phase of analysing this evidence, ICC and RLICC are elaborating a cultural heritage impact matrix to present in detail the potential of cultural heritage and its intersecting influences across all aspects of society with a specific focus on Europe’s economy, society, culture and environment.

ICC organised two additional events open to the public entitled “What is Heritage Worth?”: first an  international debate on the evening of 16 October and an open lecture on the evening of 17 October. The aim was to nourish the Steering Committee discussions, present the project to a wider Polish and Central European audience, and broaden knowledge on the topic of cultural heritage’s impact in Europe.

The international expert debate with Péter Inkei, Monika Murzyn-Kupisz, Christian Potiron and Kate Pugh, chaired by Joanna Sanetra-Szeliga gathered over 40 people (academics, students, practitioners) interested in the four pillars of impact of cultural heritage on various spheres of life that were identified as a part of the project (economy, society, environment, and culture). During the debate experts presented the pillars and discuss various approaches to measuring the value of heritage.

The following day a renowned expert of heritage management and urban tourism, Professor Gregory J. Ashworth, gave a lecture to over 80 participants on heritage as a means of using the past for the contemporary purposes. Heritage directly and indirectly influences socio-economic development. Although widely attempted, there is no universal model for success of heritage-led development projects. It might happen that such a project fails as aside the benefits there are costs to be born as well. The lessons are to be learned from practice, but they are the lessons of careful management and not the lessons of automatic imitation of successful projects already implemented somewhere else.

These two events helped project partners to collect additional information, opinions and recommendations regarding evaluation practices that can be useful for the project’s final report which will be presented to the public on 12 June in Oslo on the occasion of the Europa Nostra Annual Congress 2015.

The CHCFE Steering Committee will meet again on 2 February 2015 in Leuven, Belgium just prior to the start of  the Thematic Week “Heritage Counts” (3-6 February)  organised by the Raymond Lemaire International Centre for Conservation (RLICC) at KU Leuven. This event, which grew out of the valorisation actions implemented within the Cultural Heritage Counts for Europe project, will bring together European policymakers and international researchers involved in cultural heritage. The Thematic Week will deal with the economic, social, environmental and cultural impact of cultural heritage and aims to provide an international overview of discourse, strategies and case studies. Click here for more info on the Thematic Week.

On the evening of 17 October in Krakow, Poland, the International Cultural Centre, a partner of the Cultural Heritage Counts for Europe project, invited professor Gregory J. Ashworth to give a lecture on “What is heritage worth?”

LECTURE BY GREGORY J. ASHWORTH // 17 October 2014 // Krakow, Poland

Description:
The essence of heritage lies in using the past for the contemporary purposes. Heritage directly and indirectly influences socio-economic development. Although widely attempted, there is no universal model for success of heritage-led development projects. The lecture inaugurated the 9th edition of a postgraduate study The  Academy of Heritage.

Biography:
Gregory J. Ashworth Professor of heritage management and urban tourism in the Department of Planning, University of Groningen. His main research interests focus on the interrelations between tourism, heritage and place marketing, largely in an urban context.

On the evening of 16 October in Krakow, Poland, the International Cultural Centre, a partner of the Cultural Heritage Counts for Europe project, held an international expert debate on the topic of “What is Heritage Worth?”

INTERNATIONAL EXPERT DEBATE // AGENDA // 16 October 2014 // Krakow, Poland

Description:
At this debate, invited experts from Western Europe and Poland presented the four pillars of impact of cultural heritage as part of the European project “Cultural Heritage Counts for Europe: Towards a European Index for Cultural Heritage”. These four pillars include the economy (especially tourism), society, environment, and culture.

Chair:
Joanna Sanetra-Szeliga, International Cultural Centre, Poland

Panellists:
Péter Inkei, Budapest Observatory, Hungary
Monika Murzyn-Kupisz, Krakow University of Economics, Poland
Christian Potiron, Pilsen2015 European Capital of Culture, Czech Republic
Kate Pugh, Heritage Alliance, United Kingdom