The seminar, “Does Cultural Heritage Count for Europe?”, will be held on Friday, 19 September 2014 in the framework of the 22nd ENCATC Annual Conference “New Challenges for the Arts and Culture: Is it just about money?” (17-19 September 2014, Brno, Czech Republic). On this occasion,  representatives of the CHCFE consortium will contribute expertise on how to convince both private and public bodies to support and finance heritage and museums.

This seminar will explore these questions by inviting members and followers of “Understanding Heritage” and “Museums in Europe” Thematic Areas, as well as academics, researchers, managers  and cultural operators from the field who are working to demonstrate the economic, aesthetic, and social impacts of cultural heritage and museums in Europe.

Providing strong evidence of cultural heritage’s impact is crucial to influence policy makers, public and private authorities and society at large. In this session the participants will also have the opportunity to learn from the first outcome from the project Cultural Heritage Counts from Europe as well as from the ongoing research on that topic run by from projects led by the Network of European Museum Organisations (NEMO) and heritage operators from ENCATC and Europa Nostra will nourish the discussions. This seminar will also take this opportunity to reflect on what all this means for those providing education and training in heritage and museum management and how they can prepare the next generation of heritage and museum professionals entering these challenging times.

REGISTER HERE to attend this seminar organised in the framework on the 22nd ENCATC Annual Conference.

On 20 May, members of the the cooperation project Cultural Heritage Counts for Europe were invited to attend the European Heritage Alliance 3.3 meeting in Brussels. Sigrid Van der Auwera from the Raymond Lemaire International Centre for Conservation presented a progress report on the project ‘Cultural Heritage Counts for Europe’ to the Alliance 3.3 members. In addition to the progress report, Cultural Heritage Counts for Europe partners stressed the need for data and studies, in particular from the following countries which are underrepresented at the time: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Malta. Nevertheless additional studies from other countries are still very welcome.

The Alliance 3.3 meeting was also beneficial for the CHCFE partnership as they listened to invited guest, Lina Mendoni, Secretary General of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, who presented the Conclusions on cultural heritage as a strategic resource for a sustainable Europe, which were adopted the following day under the leadership of the Hellenic Presidency of the European Union.

Michel Magnier, Director ‘Culture and Creativity’ of the DG Education and Culture of the European Commission also joined the meeting and exchanged views with the members of the Alliance on the EC Communication on cultural heritage, which is currently being finalised.