From October onwards PROCULTHER-NET will have a very intense period of meetings and events allowing to share the objectives of this initiative and promote the engagement of new members in the thematic community on the protection of cultural heritage at risk of disaster within the Knowledge Network - KN. This page is refreshed regularly, follow the hastag #ProcultherNet for real-time updates.
On 5 October 2022, Ms Tiziana Vicario and Ms Veronica Piacentini, respectively Project Manager and DPC cultural heritage expert for PROCULTHER-NET, will intervene in the Workshop on “Cultural Heritage Fire Safety” jointly organised by the Italian National Fire and Rescue Service and the National Fire Protection Association - NFPA (1) in cooperation with the Association of Engineers of Rome. At the event, experts from the National Fire and Rescue Service and the Italian Ministry of Culture -MiC that contributed to the outcomes of the PROCULTHER Project and are following the new initiative PROCULTHER-NET, will share the floor with international speakers for comparing the approaches for fire safety of historic buildings: their damage reduction plan and related management aspects, the technical fire prevention standards and cultural heritage safety at national and international level.
On next 12 October 2022, Mr Giovanni De Siervo, PROCULTHER-NET Director, has been invited to speak at the “Round table on the EU’s Approach to Cultural Heritage in Conflict and Crises: Best Practices and Lessons Identified” during the session on the priorities for the future. This event is organised in Brussels by Cultural Solutions and the EU Institute for Security Studies - EUISS in an international background characterised by numerous conflicts and crises around the world coupled with the growing impact of natural and anthropic hazards putting cultural assets under growing threats. In such a context, the international community and European Union are exerting several efforts for increasing cultural heritage resilience both in times of peace and crisis. This will be an outstanding occasion for PROCULTHER-NET to be shared as pilot initiative linking civil protection authorities, cultural affairs actors, knowledge holders with a holistic and interdisciplinary approach aimed at strengthening the cultural heritage pillar of the Union Civil Protection Mechanism-UCPM through the establishment of a thematic community on the protection of cultural heritage at risk of disaster within the Union Civil Protection Knowledge Network-KN. Among the speakers are worth mentioning representatives from ALIPH - International alliance for the protection of heritage in conflict areas, the Integrated Approach for Security and Peace Directorate - EEAS and from ICCROM that is also member of the PROCULTHER-NET Consortium. Interventions on good practices in this field are also expected from the Musée des Civilisations Noires, UNESCO and CPCC Cultural Heritage Protection, European External Action Service.
Flood is the first risk in France in terms of the economic losses and damages it causes: on 13 October 2022 the Center and Search Restoration Musées de France (C2RMF) together with Service des musées de France in Paris are hosting the workshop “Agir Face aux Inondations”. National and international stakeholders participating to this journée d’étude will take stock of how this risk has been taken into account in the protection systems against floods developed by cultural heritage institutions, i.e., the new tools available, the current methods and protocols, and will have a precious moment of exchange between the specialists and practitioners.
On 14 October, Ms Veronica Piacentini, DPC cultural heritage expert for PROCULTHER-NET, will update the experts attending the 8th Meeting of the Commission’s Expert Group on Cultural Heritage on the progresses made by PROCULTHER and its outcomes bringing PROCULTHER-NET closer to build the thematic community for protecting cultural heritage at risk of disaster. During the meeting, the cultural heritage managers convened in Brussels by the European Commission Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture - DG EAC will be informed on the results of the OMC (Open Method Coordination) (2) report on cultural heritage and climate change and on other projects and initiatives dealing the protection of cultural heritage, and will be updated on the actions implemented by the EU MS for the cultural heritage safeguard in Ukraine.
Representatives from PROCULTHER-NET will take part to PREVENT– an International Symposium on Mitigating Fire Risk for Heritage, organised by ICCROM, in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture and Media, Republic of Croatia, the City of Trogir, the Croatian Firemen Association and the Public Fire Brigade of the City of Trogir. The workshop will be hosted by Croatia on 17 and 18 October 2022 and will showcase 9 field projects that were implemented in 8 countries – Brazil, Canada, Chile, Croatia, Ireland, Israel, Nigeria and Palestine. The participants, i.e., fire risk specialists/firefighters and cultural heritage professionals from nine different countries, will be provided with a unique learning opportunity to examine fire risk for different types of cultural heritage up close. PROCULTHER-NET will advocate for the engagement of new partners and stakeholders to the thematic community to be established and consolidated within the KN.
Field Exercise to test New technologies applied to the prevention and management of emergencies in cultural heritage in Spain
On 16 November 2022 the Museum and the Municipal Archives of the City of Antequera will be the scenario of a field exercise organised in the framework of the Resilient-Tourism “New technologies applied to the prevention and management of emergencies in cultural heritage and emergency response in pandemic conditions” a project led by the Pablo de Olavide University of Seville and financed by the Junta de Andalucía and European Regional Development Fund- ERDF.
The project aims to create a space for innovation around tourism and cultural heritage, to generate and transfer knowledge capable of responding to a changing environment in the face of pandemic situations or possible disasters, through new models of sustainable heritage that integrate the conservation of cultural heritage also from an economic and environmental perspective. This field exercise is organied in collaboration with the Antequera Town Council, its civil protection service, the Andalusian Institute of Historical Heritage, the Valencian Institute of Conservation, Restoration and Research (IVCR+i), the company Mission Track and other agents.
The exercise will apply the corresponding Self-Protection Plan, which activates the Municipal Emergency Plan, interfaceing with the Andalusian Regional Government to solicit its intervention as well. It will also be an opportunity to test “Mission Track” the application developed by the Pablo de Olavide University of Seville in order to provide the personnel involved with all the necessary information to identify the most important cultural assets to take, how to move them and where to secure them.
Ms Cristina Escudero, coordinator of the Emergency Unit for Cultural Heritage of the Region Castilla y León - UGRECYL and PROCULTHER-NET expert, will participate in the field simulation and to the side event organised at the Andalusian Historical Heritage Institute on 30 November for presenting the preliminary results of the exercise together with other activities on cultural heritage protection and management being carried out in different autonomous communities.
III Awareness Days on Threats to Cultural Heritage
The increasing threats faced by cultural heritage needs multifaceted responses and the elaboration of protection, management and conservation measures that take into account interdisciplinary perspectives. On 22 and 23 November, the Higher Polytechnic School of Engineering (Escuela Politécnica Superior de Ingeniería - EPSI) of San Cristóbal de La Laguna (Tenerife) is hosting the 3rd Edition of the “Awareness days on threats to Cultural Heritage”. Ms Cristina Escudero, PROCULTHER-NET expert and UGRECYL coordinator, will share with the audience the project approach and expected results. These awareness days, aimed to promote knowledge transfer between sectors involved in cultural heritage management, will allow experts, technicians and local people to exchange on existing risks and threats and to learn more on how to manage and coordinate actions for the safeguard of cultural heritage at risk.
PROCULTHER-NET and the Union for the Mediterranean
The Euro-Mediterranean Ministers of Foreign Affairs will gather in Barcelona on 24 November for the 7th Regional Forum of the Union for the Mediterranean - UfM. The day before, 23 November, PROCULTHER-NET will share the floor with its French partners the Ministry of Interior - Direction Générale de la Sécurité Civile et la Gestion de Crise and the Centre de recherche et de restauration des musées de France (C2RMF), and will intervene virtually at the Meeting “Youth for a more sustainable, prosperous and integrated Mediterranean 2030”. Project Partners and stakeholders will participate to inform the young people from across 20 Euro-Mediterranean countries that in the last two years were involved in the elaboration of the white paper “Plaidoyer pour la Méditerranée 2030”. This common advocacy statement takes up the expectations and recommendations of future generations towards building a more sustainable, prosperous and integrated Mediterranean horizon 2030. Young participants to this preparatory meeting will learn more on PROCULTHER-NET and on the French Safeguarding Plan for Cultural Property. Feeback from this day will merge into a presentation that will be shared with the UfM Ministers of Foreign Affairs convened at the Regional Forum on 24 November, for them to endorse the recommendations of younger generation for enhanced sustainability, prosperity and integration across the Mediterranean region. The Forum will be co-chaired by the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, Josep Borrell, and by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates of Jordan, Ayman Safadi, hosted by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation of Spain, José Manuel Albares, and in the presence of the Secretary General of the Union for the Mediterranean, Nasser Kamel.
International Conference Architectural Monuments in Conflicts and Disasters – Prevention / Intervention / Recovery in Germany
On next 25 November, ICOMOS Germany together with the German UNESCO Commission, the Blue Shield Germany and the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) are organising the International Conference Architectural Monuments in Conflicts and Disasters that will focus on immovable culturale heritage in conflicts and disasters. Experts from DAI and the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW) will present the work they are carryng out with the project KulturGutRetter (1) and the activities they are implementing with the PROCULTHER-NET Partners. Colleagues from DAI and THW will also share with participants the “Key Elements of a European Methodology to Address the Protection of Cultural Heritage during Emergencies”, the shared tool providing key operational and technical elements for the resilience of disaster-prone cultural heritage elaborated under PROCULTHER. The conference will be held in hybrid format with simultaneous translation in German and English.
