Engaging Communities in Cultural Heritage
Date:
06, 07, 09, 10 October 2025
Location:
Online Training Program
Application Deadline:
01 September 2025
APPLY NOW
Engaging Communities
Vacancies for this workshop are limited, so please apply early.
Course Directors & Instructors
Dr Evangelos Kyriakidis
HERITΛGE Director
E: [email protected]
Dr Aris Anagnostopoulos
Honorary Lecturer University of Kent, HERITΛGE Public Director
E: [email protected]
Dr Lena Stefanou
Cultural Organizations Management MSc, Hellenic Open University, HERITΛGE Public Officer
E: [email protected]
Community engagement has become an integral part of the public programs of heritage institutions worldwide. Over time, diverse methodologies and best practices have emerged to effectively involve the wide array of communities and audiences served by these institutions. However, uncritically applying standardized “toolkits” for engagement may not be the most ethical way to honour cultural differences in this field.
During this 3-day workshop, we aim to develop a different approach to community engagement based on social (and art) research with community-led initiatives.
By adopting a research-led approach, we can foster collaborative design and actions that truly resonate with the unique cultural and social dynamics of each specific group or community, as well as their interactions with others. Drawing from our extensive experience in community engagement within the heritage sector, we will share numerous examples from our own work and other notable projects.
Throughout the workshop, participants will delve into the context of community engagement in the realm of heritage. We will explore methodologies grounded in ethnography and oral history, while also engaging in practical exercises to reinforce learning.
For details on the themes taught and application procedures, see the official announcement of the workshop here.
On successfully completing the workshop students will be able to:
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- ● Understand community engagement as a process in time.
- ● Understand community engagement as one of the key strategies of heritage management.
- ● Be aware of key challenges when working/collaborating with local communities.
- ● Acquire basic knowledge on how to create a community engagement project workflow.
- ● Understand heritage values and how they work.
- ● Learn how to understand different communities, their characteristics, needs and capacities.
- ● Think about how to initiate engagement programs suited to the characteristics, needs and capacities of different communities.
- ● Learn to discern between communities and audiences and understand audience segmentation.
- ● Get introduced to ethnographic approaches to creating collaborative research-based community engagement programs.
- ● Get introduced to the methods and techniques of oral history for the elicitation and documentation of tangible and intangible heritage.