A European methodology and tools for the protection of cultural heritage in emergency

  • After the project’s official kick off meeting in Rome in March 2019, the Consortium focused on setting up in France, Italy, Turkey and Spain the working groups by gathering the national stakeholders involved in the safeguard of cultural heritage in both phases of preparedness and response. Thanks to the contributions given by those experts, PROCULTHER switched to the inventory phase and organised four national meetings starting in June 2019.
  • This inventory activity ended on December 2019: the national working groups have been required to analyse the capacities that their Countries are able to deploy in the preparation and response phases and to specify which contribution they could offer at European and international level in this field.
  • On December 2019 PROCULTHER convened the national stakeholders to the international workshop in order to review the national reports endorsed by the respective working groups and to bring together existing experiences and capacities so as to provide elements for the elaboration of a shared European response methodology – including guidelines and SOPs – to address protection of cultural heritage during emergencies. Find out more on the Workshop results
  • Two final steps allowed PROCULTHER Partners to further elaborate on and to fine-tuning the contents of a European methodology for the protection of cultural heritage in emergency: in June 2021, during the virtual international workshop “Defining European Technical and Operational Capacities for the Protection of Cultural Heritage at Risk of Disaster” and in November 2021 under the “Virtual International Training Module on the Protection of Tangible and Intangible Cultural Heritage in Emergency”. The first event provided PROCULTHER Partners and stakeholders with the opportunity for further exchanges and deeper analysis of the key elements needed, while the Virtual Training gave the chance to test the module following the training module proposed by the document.
  • As a result of this process, the “Key Elements of a European Methodology to Address the Protection of Cultural Heritage during Emergencies” were presented during the PROCULTHER Final Conference (December 2021) and are available for download by clicking on the link below.

Building on the experience and lessons learnt by PROCULTHER and PROCULTHER-NET (2022-2023) – co-funded by DG ECHO and implemented under the framework of the Union Civil Protec­tion Knowledge Network- UCPKN-, the ongoing phase, PROCULTHER-NET 2 (2024-2025) (1) aims at consolidating the inclusion of the protection of cultural heritage at risk in the Union Civil Protection Mecha­nism – UCPM processes and structures, so as to increase disaster preparedness capacities and knowledge at European and national levels. PROCULTHER-NET 2 moves forward to consolidate and further expand the thematic community on the protection of cul­tural heritage at risk established within the UCPKN, namely for defining elements for its sustainable governance and functioning.

Among the tools proposed by PROCULTHER-NET there are the Technical Bulletins, an open-access, online and printed publication with the aim to:

  • Define a collaborative reference publication on the themes related to the protection of cultural heritage at risk
  • Contribute to building a European thematic community on the preservation of cultural heritage at risk of disasters, caused by natural or human-induced hazards.
  • Promote collaboration and sharing of multi-sectoral approaches between disaster risk managers and cultural heritage experts.
  • Foster the mutual exchange and knowledge transfer between the disaster risk management and cultural heritage sectors.
  • Collect and spread useful, lasting knowledge on cultural heritage in crises through detailed, technical contributions.
  • Bring insight and perspective on this field from an expert point of view.
  • Enable and encourage cooperation and future developments to preserve of cultural heritage at risk at the European level

Three issues of this publication have been shared so far (click on the titles to access the publication):

ISSUE #1 March 2023
ISSUE # 2 June 2023
ISSUE # 3 July 2024

There is always time to contribute to the growth of the thematic community proposed by PROCULTHER-NET and to intensify the knowledge transfer processes it promotes; experts from UCPM countries wishing to share good practices or approaches relevant to the protection of cultural heritage at risk can contact their National Civil Protection Authority to apply for the next issues!

(1) PROCULTHER-NET 2 is implement­ed by a Consortium led by the Italian Civil Protection Department (Italy) in collaboration with the Ministry of In­terior-Disaster and Emergency Man­agement Authority – AFAD (Türkiye), the German Archaeological Institute – DAI (Germany), the Ministère de l’In­térieur – Direction Générale de la Sécurité Civile et de la Gestion des Crises (France), the Fondazione Hallgarten – Franchetti Centro Studi Villa Montesca, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Region Government of Castilla y León (Spain), the Fed­eral Agency for Technical Relief – THW (Germany), the University of Porto – UPORTO (Portugal) and the Suor Orsola Benincasa University – UNISOB (Italy).

Download the Key Elements of a European Methodology to Address the Protection of Cultural Heritage during Emergencies in English

Téléchargez Les éléments clés d’une méthodologie européenne pour la protection du patrimoine culturel en cas d’urgence en français!