Working with Prof. Brimblecombe

How can climate projections help heritage professionals decide which monument needs attention first? And what does adaptation mean for a mountain community whose landscape and traditions are threatened by recurring wildfires? These were among the questions that heritage professionals and researchers brought to Athens for the first Seasonal School of the European Partnership for Resilient Cultural Heritage (RCH).

The Heritage Management Organization (HERITΛGE) delivered the school, Heritage Adaptation to Climate Change, from 5 to 15 October 2026. More than 400 applications were filed from around the world. Fourteen participants attended in person at the European Parliament’s Europa Experience in Athens, and more than 100 took part online. The in-person participants were selected from candidates nominated by states participating in RCH. They represented 13 countries, with two participants from Spain and one each from Belgium, Croatia, Egypt, Finland, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania and the United Kingdom.

Professor Peter Brimblecombe, Dr Jenny Richards and HERITΛGE Director Dr Evangelos Kyriakidis led the training. Participants brought projects from their own work and used them to explore how to find and interpret climate data, assess risks to particular sites and prioritise conservation measures. The group included conservators, architects, ethnographers, materials scientists and meteorologists, some working on their doctoral research and others drawing on years of professional practice.

Reflecting on the value of bringing these colleagues together, Dr Kyriakidis said, “It was a great opportunity not only to learn from excellent instructors such as Peter Brimblecombe and Jenny Richards, but also to learn from one another and see the different challenges and the different solutions that are being given in different countries and in different types of heritage, different aspects of heritage.”

From national strategy to the stone of the Acropolis

Professor Constantinos Cartalis’ Keynote

In his keynote, Professor Constantinos Cartalis of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens presented Greece’s national strategy for protecting cultural heritage from the impacts of climate change, focusing on monuments and archaeological sites. Field visits to the Acropolis and the archaeological site of Elefsina, organised by the University of West Attica’s Department of Conservation of Antiquities and Works of Art, gave participants the opportunity to consider those challenges on site. While in Athens, the Seasonal School participants also attended a special EMPATHS Multiplier Event on how heritage professionals and local communities can work together to interpret cultural heritage and respond to climate change.

For Dr Alexis Stefanis, an associate professor in the department who also leads HERITΛGE’s conservation workshops, understanding the risks to an archaeological site means looking closely at the materials themselves. Floods and wildfires are visible threats. Changes in the way moisture moves or salts crystallise within porous stone can be harder to see, yet they matter to the conservators responsible for its care. “What’s happening inside the pores of the material? How does salt crystallisation happen?” he asked.

Back in the classroom, participants explored how to use evidence of such risks to make the case for intervention. As Professor Brimblecombe put it, “quantification is really important in convincing policy makers and people who can fund restoration and fund preservation of sites.”

What participants took home

For Ana Margarida Cruz da Silva, a researcher at the Centre for Intercultural Studies at the Polytechnic University of Porto, the starting point was Serra da Estrela. Her doctoral research explores identity and memory in this mountainous region of Portugal, where communities have faced wildfires for decades. She came to the school with an interest in how people protect both the places and the traditions affected by those fires. Asked what she would take back to her work, she said:

“I think that one of the main insights is that a lot of people are dealing with the same things we are dealing with. But the other part is also that we can see so many different things happening in the world that sometimes we are not aware of… it was an amazing opportunity also to take back to the community things that are happening across the world.”

Other participants approached the relationship between heritage and climate through very different projects. Aurora Cairoli, a conservation and heritage scientist from Italy, studies contemporary outdoor murals. Their exposure to the elements is one part of her research. Another is what happens to their significance when environmental change affects the communities for whom the paintings are part of a shared identity.

Ionica Pîrvu, who works in the Project Management Unit of Romania’s Ministry of Culture, used the school to develop an idea for monitoring the country’s built heritage. He told HERITΛGE that upon his return, he will propose a network of sensors that could track humidity, vibration and small cracks in historic buildings. Read alongside satellite imagery, those measurements could help conservators spot gradual deterioration and decide where an early repair could prevent more extensive damage.

HERITΛGE thanks the European Parliament Office in Athens for welcoming the Seasonal School to Europa Experience, Professor Constantinos Cartalis for his time and insights, the University of West Attica for organising the field visits, and the Ephorate of Antiquities of the City of Athens and the Ephorate of Antiquities of West Attica for their support and kind offer to guide the Seasonal School around both these important sites and share insights into their work.

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Aboriginal painting on rock surfaces. Photo: Herbert Basedow, Public domain. Source: National Museum of Australia via Wikimedia Commons

By Olivia Panetta*

In May 2020, Rio Tinto legally destroyed two rock shelters at Juukan Gorge in the Pilbara region.  The shelters preserved evidence of approximately 46,000 years of occupation and held profound  cultural significance for the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura peoples. Australian legislation made this destruction entirely legal. It occurred specifically under ministerial consent granted through Western Australia’s Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972. That is perhaps the most disturbing part: a place of extraordinary cultural importance and memory could be recognised and recorded and still  the law enabled a mining company more authority over the site than it gave the people to whom the place belonged. A parliamentary inquiry followed, recommending a national framework built on free, prior and informed consent. More than six years later, such reform has not yet been enacted. 

From Bologna, where my love for history and aspirations as an archaeologist led me to a Master’s in cultural heritage, I find myself thinking of Juukan Gorge. Three years on, I have realised that being on the other side of the world has brought me closer to my Australian roots. When we think of Australia, we usually picture beautiful beaches, red desert landscapes, and  modern city skylines. One of the most common things I have grown up hearing, and what I believe  many people associate with Australia, is that it’s a ‘young country’, still finding its feet when  compared with the thousands of years of civilisation that you’re exposed to daily when walking a  single street in Italy. 

Italy protects its material past with a kind of reverence that I rarely encountered growing up in  Australia. The porticoes of Bologna, approximately 62 kilometres of them, with some dating to the  1100s, are protected in the face of modern planning. A statute written in 1288 helped establish this  continuity, and the urban fabric of the Centro Storico is maintained today. In Rome, the single  Metro Line C has taken more than twenty years because of funding, engineering, and bureaucracy,  but also because Italian law requires anything that signals archaeological importance, which was the  reality of the construction process, to be investigated before construction can continue. Two new  ‘archaeostations’ opened in December 2025, displaying the archaeological structures and artefacts  uncovered during construction so those on their daily commute can walk past, like an open  museum. The Italian heritage system, of course, is far from flawless, but here the archaeological  past repeatedly interrupts modern urban life, emerging beneath roads and railway stations,  restricting what can be built and what’s remaining almost impossible to overlook. There is pride in  preserving and displaying it. 

Of course, the material visibility of Australia’s past is very different. Australia’s settler-built  environment is comparatively young, while its much deeper Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander  history is embedded primarily in Country, in cultural landscapes, waterways, rock art, engineered  environments and continuing knowledge. Indigenous culture is highly visible when reproduced  through tourism, national imagery or commercial design, yet the Country from which it emerges has  not always received the same public recognition or legal protection. 

This contrast between the two countries and the way they treat heritage is glaring. Reflecting from my small apartment in Bologna’s Centro Storico, I found myself  confronting something uncomfortable: Archaeological evidence places people on the Australian  continent at least 65,000 years ago, while Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures remain  living and continuous. So, the perception of Australia as a ‘young country’ comes directly from  considering its colonial past, yet why does this description remain so familiar? 

For a sector like ours, the glaring difference between Italy’s near-religious preservation efforts and Australia’s gap between recommendation and reform as evidenced in the aftermath of the Juukan Gorge loss, mean there is a staggering amount of practical work still ahead for Australia. Legal protection has to mean decision-making authority, not just consultation. Western Australia briefly strengthened its cultural heritage laws, only to repeal them  weeks later and return to the amended 1972 Act.

But, there are still some reasons for hope. Last July, UNESCO inscribed the Murujuga  Cultural Landscape on the World Heritage List after decades of a campaign led by its Traditional  Custodians. The land and seascape contain an estimated one to two million petroglyphs and record  approximately 50,000 years of Ngarda-Ngarli custodianship, creativity and adaptation. 

At the same time, archaeologists are identifying entirely new rock art styles in the Kimberley, with  divers finding tools preserved on the seabed off the Pilbara coast and cultural evidence underwater.  This work demonstrates that the sector is capable of extraordinary work that is both  interdisciplinary and community-led heritage, even within systems where meaningful protection has  often required a prolonged struggle. 

I don’t presume to speak for the Traditional Owners, whose authority over their heritage must  remain central. But, from an ocean away and while studying heritage abroad, I can question the assumptions I brought with me and to write honestly about my own country’s oldest and most vulnerable heritage, contemplating what protecting it might actually look like. Australia’s heritage stretches far beyond the story suggested by the phrase “young country”. Protecting it requires us to recognise that depth—and to ensure that the people who have cared for Country across generations have meaningful authority over what happens to it now.

*Olivia Panetta is an Australian archeologist completing her Masters at the University of Bologna.

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At The Heritage Management Organization we are expanding our training offer and making our training expertise available to all at their own time  with the launch of the HERITΛGE Online Academy.  The Academy makes our specialist training available through flexible, self-paced online courses in heritage management. 

Developing your skills should be possible alongside the demands of your work and everyday life. You can now choose a course, enrol directly without an interview, and work through the learning materials at times that suit you. There are no scheduled classes to attend: you decide when to study within your course’s access period.

For those already familiar with HERITΛGE’s trainer-led online workshops, the Academy offers a new way to learn. It complements our existing training programmes with courses you can take independently, without waiting for a workshop date or coordinating your schedule with live sessions.

Practical knowledge for your heritage work

The Academy offers courses and programmes across six subject areas to start with, all with heritage organizations and sensitivities in mind, curated jointly by our international faculty and the organization’s education team:

• Heritage interpretation: explore how to communicate heritage through engaging narratives, talks and walks.
• Principles in Heritage conservation: understand conservation principles, values, ethics and professional collaboration.
• Project management: build knowledge across the project cycle, including planning, budgeting, risk management and grant applications.
• Strategic planning: strengthen your approach to setting priorities and making organisational decisions.
• Human resource management: explore the challenges of managing people and volunteers in heritage organisations.
• Climate change adaptation: understand climate-related threats to cultural heritage and their implications for conservation and management.

Whether you care for a heritage site, work in a museum or cultural organisation, contribute to a community initiative, or want to develop your professional skills, the Academy offers opportunities to expand and deepen your knowledge.

Courses developed by specialists combine focused content with learning outcomes relevant to heritage practice. Affordable options allow you to choose training that addresses your interests and needs, while organisations can explore opportunities to support the development of their teams.

These courses can also function as a project management tool, around the work that you are currently doing. Use each section for doing the relevant work, or thinking around that topic and move forward as you make progress in your work.

Explore the course descriptions, choose the subject that matters to you, and check the study time and access details before enrolling.

Build your heritage skills. Learn at your own pace.

Explore the HERITΛGE Online Academy

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On October 8 and 9, HERITΛGE held the in-person Oral History and Heritage workshop at the Museo Estatal de Culturas Populares de Nuevo León. The workshop – part of our HerMaP Mexico initiative – provided a space for learning and exchange focused on the use of oral history to document, preserve, and transmit cultural heritage and community memory. The program combined methodological tools, ethical considerations, and practical exercises applied to heritage projects.

The workshop brought together a group of eight participants working with Indigenous communities and cultural heritage projects, bringing diverse experiences and perspectives and representing at least five Indigenous peoples residing in Nuevo León. This exchange provided an opportunity to reflect on oral history not only as a documentation methodology, but also as a tool for strengthening the transmission of memories, knowledge, and living cultural practices.

We were joined by guest facilitator Dr. Claudia Uribe Chinen, a Peruvian archaeologist specializing in heritage studies, public archaeology, heritage ethics, and community participation, HERITΛGE exalumna. Claudia also presented a case study from Peru, bringing an international perspective to the workshop and creating connections with the experiences shared by participants in Mexico.

We were also joined by Diana Laura Lozano Linares and David Maldonado Pérez, members of CEMPO in Ciudad Juárez, who had previously participated in HERITΛGE’s in-person Oral History and Heritage workshop in Chihuahua in March 2026. In Monterrey, they shared their experience working with Indigenous peoples residing in Ciudad Juárez during a conversation focused on resident and migrant Indigenous communities in Chihuahua, bringing an important border perspective to the dialogue around memory, identity, and living heritage.

The quality of the work presented and the potential of the initiatives led by this group highlighted the opportunities to continue developing oral history projects from and with communities themselves, while strengthening networks among those working to safeguard living heritage across northern Mexico.

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How can heritage practitioners create meaningful opportunities for communities to shape the ways their heritage is understood, cared for and shared? This question guided HERITΛGE’s recent four-day online workshop, Engaging Communities in Cultural Heritage, which brought together 23 participants from 18 countries.

Participants joined from Poland, Lebanon, Italy, Iraq, Albania, Greece, Armenia, Rwanda, Serbia, Latvia, Mauritius, India, Egypt, Iran, South Africa, Kenya, Palestine and Nepal to explore 

The programme examined different understandings of community, identity, belonging and relationships with heritage, while emphasising the importance of positionality, research, inclusion, accessibility and meaningful participation. 

Participants were introduced to approaches including Asset-Based Community Development, asset mapping and ethnographic research, exploring how community assets, knowledge, relationships and networks can inform the design and implementation of engagement activities. 

Through collaborative exercises and practical discussions, they considered how engagement strategies can respond to different community contexts, needs and perspectives, while addressing issues such as trust, representation, internal dynamics, sustainability and informed consent.

The workshop also addressed the methodological and ethical dimensions of oral history, with a focus on interview preparation, questioning techniques, memory, documentation, consent and the responsibilities of researchers when working with sensitive narratives and communities. 

Participants explored how oral testimonies can be documented, analysed and contextualised, while reflecting on the relationship between the interviewer, the narrator and the resulting historical record. 

The programme was delivered by , Dr Aris Anagnostopoulos, HERITΛGE Public Director, and Dr Lena Stefanou Archaeologist-Museologist and Visiting Lecturer for Museum Studies ad the University of Bologna. It concluded with a guest lecture by Elijah Vanderpuye Cunnison, Cultural Officer at Ghana’s National Commission on Culture and a Theatre Studies graduate, who shared insights from his professional experience on Ghanaian culture and heritage, community engagement, oral history, heritage interpretation and community-based heritage initiatives. 

His contribution broadened the discussion to issues including community consent, heritage education, benefit sharing and intellectual property, as well as the wider connections between heritage and education, gender, climate change, human rights, sustainable development, tourism, science and technology, disaster management, media and intercultural competence.

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Alexandre Causse from RCH Co-ordinator FSP declaring the opening of the Kick off event

The Heritage Management Organization (HERITΛGE) marked this year’s European Heritage Days by joining our fellow consortium partners and hundreds of cultural heritage and climate professionals, researchers, policymakers and other stakeholders from around the world for the launch of the European Partnership for Resilient Cultural Heritage (RCH) in Marseille, France. RCH is co-funded by the European Union. 

With the 2026 European Heritage Days theme, “Heritage at Risk: Revive, Resist, Reimagine,” the gathering offered a timely opportunity to turn attention towards the future of heritage in a changing climate—and the role heritage itself can play in helping communities adapt.

The successful kick-off event, organised by RCH coordinators Fondation des sciences du patrimoine on 29 September 2026, brought together participants in Marseille and online to explore RCH’s ambitions and opportunities for collaboration. Alongside the public launch, meetings of the RCH Executive Board and Partnership Assembly provided opportunities for consortium members to advance their shared work and help shape the initiative’s next steps.

The Kick off event took place at Musée des civilisations de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée (Mucem) and the neighbouring Cosquer Méditerranée which hosted the panels. We extend our warm thanks to both venues, Mucem for organising the event, and the team at Cosquer Méditerranée for stepping in on the day of the launch when disruption caused by strike action in France required additional support. Their responsiveness and hospitality helped make the event a success. The Partnership Assembly came together at the Pharo Campus of the Aix Marseille University with which RCH signed an MoU for cooperation. 

HERITΛGE was represented by its Director, Dr. Evangelos Kyriakidis,  our Communications Lead, Maria Kagkelidou and Roula Gika, our Chief Administrative Officer.

Co-funded by the European Union, RCH brings together more than 90 partners from 30 countries in a ten-year collaboration connecting cultural heritage and climate research. It will support transnational research, strengthen cooperation and help translate knowledge into practical responses to climate change. Its ambition encompasses both protecting heritage from climate impacts and understanding how heritage, traditional knowledge and communities can contribute to adaptation.

HERITΛGE leads the Partnership’s communication, dissemination and exploitation efforts, helping its activities, findings and opportunities reach the people and organisations who can use them. We also contribute to mapping activities and to the development of the Partnership’s capacity-building programme for the coming decade.

That work is swiftly moving from discussion to delivery with the first RCH Seasonal School being delivered by HERITΛGE in Athens and online from 5 to 15 October 2026. Titled Heritage Adaptation to Climate Change, the School will bring together 15 participants in person and more than 100 online for an intensive programme connecting climate science with cultural heritage management. It is the culmination of HERITΛGE’s long standing commitment to climate change adaptation and mitigation for cultural and natural heritage and is led by Dr. Kyriakidis, Professor Peter Brimblecombe, and Dr. Jenny Richards. Through lectures, workshops, field visits and project-based learning, participants will explore climate-related risks and develop approaches to adapting heritage to a changing environment.

We thank our partners from around the world for joining us for the launch of RCH and supporting this major initiative as well as the Seasonal School. 

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Mark chatting to community members in the Red Rocks centre.

By Mark Goldstone* 

Ochre burnt-orange dust, which for convenience we call red, covers both the outside and the inside of my 4×4. Everything is a hill in Rwanda, and my trip today takes me up a thousand hills and down a thousand more. Power takes me up and gravity takes me down like a marble in a marble run. 

My destination is the Red Rocks Intercultural Exchange Centre in Rwanda’s highlands outside the city of Musanze. The journey is hard and I arrive tired and dusty, but within five minutes every member of staff knows my name. This is the kind of welcome you can expect at Red Rocks, a community-based initiative  working with communities living alongside protected areas and important natural ecosystems that has received one of HERITΛGE’s small grants for African projects and is also the recipient of another grant, fiscally sponsored by HERITΛGE.

The Musanze project combines accommodation with a cultural centre where local people ply traditional crafts, selling their wares in the onsite shop. There is basket weaving, a traditional kitchen serving vegetables grown in the onsite garden. Drums beat the dusk, reminding us that the end of the day is near. 

Proofing dough takes patience, you just have to wait till the right texture is achieved; in the Red Rocks kitchen they make everything fresh so some waiting is worthwhile. The Chef comes out to greet me in person and enquires about my tastes. Needless to say, he already knows my name. An hour later the freshly made samosas arrive hot from the kitchen. Too hot to touch, more patience required but eventually the spicy samosas taste of smiles. Love hides in the corners of the food. Love of the craft of cookery, love of the ability to sustain and entertain at once. A cold beer dances with the chilli heat and sleep will not be long. 

The next day is the opening ceremony of the Red Rocks Cultural Festival 2026. Many members of the local community leaders have gathered to kick off a week of celebration and dialogue. Much has already been achieved, but that just proves the potential of the Red Rocks approach, marrying community development with sustainable tourism. 

As I am here representing HERITΛGE, I am asked for some words. I talk about the 115 heritage projects in 35 African countries that have received small grants through the HerMaP Africa initiative* the Organization’s approach of supporting local action whilst situating the projects within global fellowship networks. I reflect on Rwanda’s extraordinary 9.2% growth in GDP, a young, increasingly educated population and the investment that is flowing into both tourism and the new knowledge economies. Rwanda punches above its weight class for a small nation in the hills. 

Lastly I conclude, “Good leaders get things done, great leaders create platforms for other leaders to emerge.” This is what I learn at Red Rocks, a platform in which leadership from the community is able drive change in a sustainable way. Red Rocks founder Greg still has many ambitions for the future.  

As I am preparing to leave I hear that the chef has been in an accident with a motorbike. Only once returned to Kigali do I hear the tragic news that our chef did not survive his injuries. This article is dedicated to the memory of Twizeyimana Faustin. Our thoughts and prayers are with his friends and family. 

* Mark Goldstone has researched and written HERITΛGE’s forthcoming publication showcasing projects supported through its grant programmes across Africa. This reflection emerged from his visit to Red Rocks Rwanda, one of the organisations featured in the publication.

**Through HerMaP Africa, HERITΛGE has provided 74 small grants for African heritage project and acted as a fiscal sponsor for another 29.   

*** HERITΛGE signed an MoU with Red Rocks Rwanda in 2024 and is currently supporting two of the organization’s heritage projects.

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The Heritage Management Organization (HERITΛGE) se complace en anunciar los 10 proyectos seleccionados para recibir apoyo a través de HerMaP México, su principal iniciativa para fortalecer la gestión del patrimonio cultural en la región fronteriza del norte de México.

Los proyectos seleccionados representan a Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León y Tamaulipas, garantizando así la representación de los seis estados que conforman el ámbito geográfico de HerMaP México en esta primera convocatoria de apoyos.

Los proyectos fueron seleccionados entre 115 solicitudes recibidas a través de una convocatoria abierta lanzada a principios de 2026, reflejando tanto la extraordinaria riqueza del patrimonio cultural de la región como el compromiso de las comunidades, profesionales e instituciones que trabajan para salvaguardarlo. 

Diez proyectos, múltiples expresiones del patrimonio

Las iniciativas seleccionadas ofrecen una ventana a la extraordinaria diversidad del norte de México. Abarcan desde técnicas agrícolas tradicionales y tradiciones gastronómicas hasta artesanías, música, sitios de memoria, museos y documentación fotográfica del patrimonio cultural inmaterial. Se desarrollan en paisajes igualmente diversos, que van desde las costas y los extensos desiertos hasta regiones montañosas y complejos entornos urbanos.

Igualmente importante es la diversidad de las personas y organizaciones que están detrás de estos proyectos y que trabajan por la salvaguardia del patrimonio en toda la región. Entre los beneficiarios se encuentran personas y comunidades indígenas, iniciativas comunitarias y asociaciones, profesionales independientes e instituciones públicas. Algunos proyectos se desarrollan en pequeñas comunidades, mientras que otros tienen el potencial de generar impacto a nivel estatal. Varios involucran a jóvenes, fomentan el diálogo intergeneracional y crean oportunidades para transmitir conocimientos y saberes de una generación a otra.

“Estos diez proyectos nos muestran lo que realmente significa el patrimonio cuando miramos más allá de monumentos o colecciones individuales: es conocimiento, memoria, habilidades, paisajes y prácticas profundamente arraigadas en la vida de las personas”, señaló el Dr. Evangelos Kyriakidis, Director de The Heritage Management Organization. “Nuestro objetivo no es simplemente proporcionar financiamiento. Queremos ofrecer a las personas y organizaciones con buenas ideas los recursos, las capacidades y las conexiones que necesitan para convertirlas en iniciativas sostenibles que generen beneficios duraderos para sus comunidades”.

El proceso de selección, que se desarrolló en cuatro etapas, fue diseñado no solo para identificar propuestas sólidas, sino también para ayudar a las personas y organizaciones participantes a fortalecer sus capacidades en gestión de proyectos.

Durante los próximos meses, HERITΛGE acompañará a los equipos seleccionados durante la implementación de sus proyectos. Asimismo, se organizarán actividades de creación de redes e intercambio de conocimientos que conectarán a los beneficiarios entre sí, generando oportunidades para compartir experiencias, desafíos y buenas prácticas entre distintos estados y sectores.

La aspiración es que el impacto vaya mucho más allá de estos 10 proyectos. Al reunir a personas con diferentes conocimientos, experiencias y enfoques sobre el patrimonio, HerMaP México busca contribuir a la creación de una red regional más sólida, capaz de impulsar la colaboración y la innovación mucho después de que los proyectos individuales hayan concluido.

Las iniciativas seleccionadas también contribuirán a acercar la diversidad del patrimonio del norte de México a un público internacional más amplio.

Lista de proyectos que han recibido apoyos

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The Heritage Management Organization (HERITΛGE) is delighted to announce the 10 projects selected to receive funding through HerMaP Mexico, its major initiative to strengthen cultural heritage management across Mexico’s northern border region.

The selected projects represent Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas, ensuring that all six states within HerMaP Mexico’s geographic scope are represented in this first round of funding.

The projects were chosen from 115 applications submitted through an open call launched in early 2026, demonstrating both the extraordinary richness of the region’s cultural heritage and the commitment of communities, practitioners and institutions working to safeguard it. 

Ten projects, many different expressions of heritage

The selected initiatives offer a window onto the remarkable diversity of northern Mexico. They encompass heritage ranging from traditional farming techniques and gastronomic traditions to crafts, music, memorial sites, museums and the photographic documentation of intangible cultural heritage. They are rooted in landscapes that stretch from ocean coasts and vast deserts to mountain regions and complex urban environments.

Just as importantly, the people behind them reflect the diversity of those caring for heritage across the region. The successful applicants include Indigenous individuals and communities, grassroots and community-based initiatives, independent practitioners and public institutions Some projects operate within small communities, while others have the potential to create impact at state level. Several engage young people, foster intergenerational dialogue and create opportunities for knowledge to be passed between generations.

“These ten projects show us what heritage really means when we look beyond individual monuments or collections: it is knowledge, memory, skills, landscapes and practices that are embedded in people’s lives,” said Dr Evangelos Kyriakidis, Director of The Heritage Management Organization. “Our aim is not simply to provide funding. We want to give people and organizations with strong ideas the resources, skills and connections they need to turn those ideas into sustainable initiatives with lasting benefits for their communities.”

The selection process -that unfolded in four stages- was designed not only to identify strong proposals but also to help applicants develop their project-management skills. Over the coming months, HERITΛGE will work alongside the selected teams as they implement their projects. Networking and knowledge-sharing activities will also connect grantees with one another, creating opportunities to exchange experience, challenges and good practices across state and sector boundaries.

The ambition is that the impact will extend well beyond the 10 individual projects. By bringing together people with different expertise, lived experiences and approaches to heritage, HerMaP Mexico aims to help create a stronger regional network capable of supporting collaboration and innovation long after the individual projects have concluded. The selected initiatives will also help bring the diverse heritage of northern Mexico to a wider international audience.

List of awarded projects 

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The award commemorates Angela Bugeja of Malta, Molly Hude of the United States, and Ioanna Thomopoulou of Greece, students of the HERITΛGE MA in Heritage Management who passed prematurely on July 3, 2013, at the end of their fieldwork in Belize.

They gave a great deal to HERITΛGE in its early years, and the annual scholarship exists so that their names, and their contribution, are carried forward by other heritage professionals.

About the Angela Bugeja, Molly Hude and Ioanna Thomopoulou Memorial Scholarship
HERITΛGE aims to award one Memorial Scholarship each year. The award covers tuition fees only. It is offered to a student from the developing world, or from one of the three countries of the colleagues it commemorates – Malta, the United States, and Greece. Eligibility and application details are published at heritagemanagement.org.

About the Certificate in Digital Tools for Heritage Management
The certificate is a part-time, 30 ECTS program at EQF level 6, offered jointly by HERITΛGE and HOGENT. It runs over three months of online study followed by supervised fieldwork in Greece, and is aimed at students and young professionals working in archaeology, architecture, conservation, anthropology, geography, and heritage management who need practical command of spatial and digital documentation. Its modules are:

• Surveying methods (4 ECTS) – photogrammetry, laser scanning, and advanced spatial data acquisition
• Land surveying in practice (4 ECTS) – acquisition of photogrammetric and laser scanning data
• Data processing (4 ECTS) – processing acquired data in the relevant software
• International land surveying project (6 ECTS) – integrated fieldwork in Greece
• Cartography and GIS (4 ECTS) – geographic information systems, from basics to advanced use
• Introduction to heritage management 1 and 2 (4 ECTS each)

Full course details are available at the HERITΛGE Digital Tools certificate page.

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