Workshop Overview
Between September 23 and October 4 I had the opportunity to attend the international workshop on ‘Evaluating and managing risks related to climate change’. It was organized by the Initiative for Heritage Conservancy under the patronage of ICCROM and took place at the Initiative for Heritage Conservancy premises, in Elefsina. For those of you who didn’t manage to attend, here is a little overview of what this course was all about.
The workshop was divided into theoretical lectures and practical work. The lectures were given by Caroline Brimblecomb – training consultant and PRINCE2 qualified project manager, and Peter Brimblecomb – Associate Dean at the School of Energy and Environment and Chair Professor of Atmospheric Environment, at the City University of Hong Kong. The practical work was continuously supervised by Peter and Caroline and included individual and group exercises and work, interactive presentations and an individual project that was carried out during the two weeks and presented on the last day.
Caroline’s lectures focused mainly on issues related to research and management skills – how to draw a project management plan, the usefulness of SWOT and PESTLE analyses during this process and the importance of evaluating and managing risk. Throughout the lectures I was able to develop my critical thinking skills and also learn about strategic planning. We also addressed interesting issues related to the significance and the different kinds of heritage values.
With Peter’s lectures I was introduced to heritage climatology and material damage. He explained us the best ways to analyse climate and pollution data and also predict climate change through models. For this we had to learn the basics about programming and modelling tools and how to use data sets. Throughout these lectures I fully understood the importance of applying heritage climatology data in order to assess and manage the potential risks to material heritage.
Through both kinds of lessons, we were able to combine basic and complex methodological issues with purely scientific knowledge to the field of heritage management. We then applied this combination to our projects, which allowed us to draw structured management plans for our heritage sites and put into practice what we had learnt about heritage climatology. Most of the participants were able to assess the main climate change related risks that their sites were facing or could start facing in the near future, as well as present strategies to either avoid or mitigate them.
We were a very international group, with participants coming both from Greece and far further afield; from Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Serbia and Portugal. Because we were a relatively small group and because we all had different academic and professional backgrounds, we got to know each other very well and also learn a lot from each other’s experiences.

Sofia Lovegrove is currently working as an intern at the Initiative for Heritage Conservancy. She is interested in archaeological research and Public Archaeology. When not working for IHC, Sofia is also a volunteer at the Athenian Agora.