Cultural Heritage Counts for Europe project partners and members of its Steering Committee are preparing to meet in Leuven, Belgium on 2 February 2015. As the project moves closer to finishing its report and recommendations, this meeting in Leuven will be a valuable moment to discuss the findings gathered by project partners the International Cultural Centre (ICC) and the Raymond Lemaire International Center for Conservation (RLICC).

With the support of the CHCFE consortium, ICC and RLICC have been working since the beginning of 2014 to collect existing evidence and many case studies, European projects, as well as European, national, regional and local research and reports covering cultural heritage’s multiple benefits of  in different parts of Europe. The intended result is a detailed cultural heritage impact matrix able to present cultural heritage’s potential and its intersecting influences across all aspects of society. Moreover, the report will serve as a credible basis for policy recommendations that reflect an integrated and holistic approach towards the increased importance of heritage for today and the future.

This will be the 5th meeting for the CHCFE Steering Committee. The Steering Committee is responsible for overseeing the project’s ambition to deliver a comprehensible and comparative overview of the value and relevance of heritage in Europe. In Leuven, the group will also discuss the project’s valorisation and exploitation as well as the preparation of conclusions and final conference to be held on 12 June 2015 in Oslo, Norway. In Oslo, the outcomes and policy recommendations will be shared with an audience composed of heritage professionals,  academics, researchers, policy makers and high-level representatives from EU institutions and Member States gathered for the 2015 European Heritage Congress organised by CHCFE partner, Europa Nostra.