Local communities and academia are key actors in building community resilience, particularly in the field of cultural heritage at risk. This event, organised by UNIBO, was a great opportunity for PROCULTHER-NET to get a local perspective on approaches and operational elements and promote the involvement of the community’s local actors in the protection of cultural heritage at risk within the UCPKN
PROCULTHER-NET contributed to the day entitled "Cultural Heritage, sustainability and resilience: from risk management to territorial development" (1) organized in Ravenna on 28 June 2024, by the Department of Cultural Heritage - Alma Mater Studiorum of the University of Bologna - UNIBO. The meeting was designed to share with local actors the preparedness and response capacities that local territories can offer, also on the basis of the lessons learned from the floods that hit the Emilia-Romagna region last year, and the activities carried out by the academic world in the field of cultural heritage protection, in particular RESTART- "RESilience and Territorial Development - Heritage at Risk and Protection" and SIRIUS - "Strategies for the management of cultural heritage at risk", two projects carried out by UNIBO.
The event opened with a tripartite welcoming from the UNIBO Directions and Departments contributing to these initiatives, and continued with an introduction by the representatives of the institutions responsible for cultural heritage and emergencies management at a local and regional level and from the peripheral institutions of the Italian Ministry of Culture.
The floor was then passed to other actors involved in cultural heritage protection at a local level and participate in the management of emergencies: the Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage (Bologna Unit) and the Regional Fire Brigade Directorate of Emilia – Romagna.
Afterwards, the meeting gave space to the presentation of some of the European projects for CH protection involving Italy. In addition to the PROCULTHER initiatives, represented by Project manager Tiziana Vicario, other initiatives in line with the topic were illustrated: CHANGES-National Recovery and Resilience Plan, INTERREG INACO -CNR-ISAC, Creative Europe CHARISMA and SOS HERITAGE.
The afternoon session then focused on the two projects carried out by the Cultural Heritage Department of the University of Bologna, promoter of the day and with which PROCULTHER-NET has strong synergies: Sara Fiorentino spoke about SIRIUS - “Strategies for the management of cultural heritage at risk” while Mariangela Vandini shared the objectives and results expected from RESTART – “RESilience and Territorial Development - heritage at risk and protection”. (1)
SIRIUS aims at creating a direct impact on the territory and for this reason, it has implemented a long-lasting collaboration with local institutions and peripheral institutions of the Italian Ministry of Culture. Since January 2024, project activities have been further strengthened by another initiative: the RESTART project, financed by UNIBO in the framework of Alma CaReS – Climate change, resilience and sustainability following the severe floods that hit the region in May 2023. Its objective being to encourage the sharing of operational criteria and the dissemination of knowledge on the protection and management of cultural heritage at risk in civil society and among local actors. The project, which involves various departments of the University operates in two specific areas: the consolidation of the structured exchange of competences and operational criteria and awareness raising on the contribution to resilience provided by cultural heritage protection.
During the meeting, Vicario shared the approach and the phases that marked the activities leading from PROCULTHER to PROCULTHER-NET; she introduced the participants to the Union Civil Protection Mechanism and the initiatives it promotes in the field of cultural heritage at risk. She finally invited the experts to become an active part of the thematic community dedicated to the protection of cultural heritage at risk within the UCPKN, for example by proposing contributions for the next issues of the PROCULTHER-NET technical bulletins.(3)
As recently noted on the occasion of high-level international fora, such as the project’s participation in the celebrations of the Hague Convention’s 70th Anniversary and the 8th EUCP Forum, both academic knowledge in the field of cultural heritage at risk and the research findings covering all phases of disaster management can fuel the debate on the next approaches to adopt to improve the preparedness and response capacities of CH protection and disaster risk management experts. In addition, through structured knowledge transfer processes, it can contribute to provide experts with useful elements for developing common standards of intervention, also in the face of new challenges represented by climate change or complex crises.
The event continued with interventions by academics and local representatives of the Ministry of Culture who took stock of public participation, the competences available for training, and of the activities for the implementation of localised strategies for flood risk mitigation, and concluded with lessons learned on the warning system and provincial plans one year after the flood that hit the Emilia-Romagna Region.
Thanks to the Project this profitable exchange provided the opportunity to expand the interdisciplinary network of local experts so as to enhance its capacity to scale-up valuable elements and further enrich the methodological approach proposed by PROCULTHER-NET.
(1) Original title “Patrimonio culturale, sostenibilità e resilienza: dalla gestione dei rischi allo sviluppo territorial”
(2) For more information, see: S. Fiorentino, T. Chinni, M. Cornaglia, A. Iannucci, M. Vandini “From data interrelationships to capacity building and public awareness: the instance of Ravenna (Italy) and project SIRIUS - management strategies for cultural heritage at risk”, pp 18-27. PROCULTHER-NET 2 Project. Technical Bulletin N. 3, July 2024. https://civil-protection-knowledge-network.europa.eu/system/files/2024-07/tb_3_final.pdf