ARCHE Consortium meets in Paris to set the stage for the Project’s second year of implementation
The consortium of Horizon-funded ARCHE project (Alliance for Research on Cultural Heritage in Europe) met between 16-18 October in Paris, on the premises of the French Ministry of Culture, to assess the first year of implementation and set the stage for the upcoming steps. The meetings brought together the project’s General Assembly (the prime responsible body for ARCHE’s scientific, research, technical, administrative, and financial issues) and Executive Board (the supervisory body for executing the Project). They coincided with the Steering Committee and Governing Board meetings of the Joint Programming Initiative on Cultural Heritage and Global Change (JPI CH).
ARCHE’s first year
The meetings addressed the finished and upcoming deliverables, as well as the completed and ongoing tasks. ARCHE’s first year focused on conducting a comprehensive mapping and assessment of the research and innovation landscape in cultural heritage across Europe, as well as to organising several rounds of engagement with stakeholders via four virtual workshops.
Future steps: the new Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda
Future steps were also approached, as throughout 2024, ARCHE will organize four in-person workshops across Europe to refine a first, currently in-progress version of the new Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) for cultural heritage. This document is one of the project’s most essential outputs since it strives to act as a roadmap for harmonising heritage research policies across the continent in the coming years.
ARCHE partners also used this opportunity to engage with the JPI CH members and to brainstorm new ways of boosting the cooperation between the two large-scale initiatives.
The future European Partnership on Resilient Cultural Heritage
Besides discussing the project’s main achievements in the past year, the exchanges in Paris also addressed the future European Partnership on Resilient Cultural Heritage, for which ARCHE aims to pave the way. In this sense, the Consortium benefitted from the valuable insights offered by Irena Kowalczyk-Kedziora, Policy Officer in the European Commission, DG Research and Innovation, Unit D3 – Fair Societies and Cultural Heritage, and Fabienne Gautier, Head of Unit in the European Commission, DG Research and Innovation, Unit G4 – Common Missions and Partnerships.
The CNR ISPC contributions
The Institute of Heritage Science (ISPC) of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR), is the leader of the “Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda” (WP2) and it is involved by the Italian Ministry for Universities and Research (MUR) as an affiliated entity.
The main objective of this WP is to develop, together with relevant stakeholders, the cross-disciplinary strategic Cultural Heritage Research and Innovation Agenda with a long-term perspective, leading to the publication of the ARCHE’s Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA).
ARCHE in a nut
The ARCHE project started in September 2022 and lasts until August 2025. Its purpose is to develop a pan-European framework for a holistic approach to cultural heritage research and innovation, by creating the Alliance for Research on Cultural Heritage in Europe, a spearheading coordination network of researchers, innovators, heritage professionals, institutional bodies and citizens. The aim is to engage a large variety of cultural heritage actors in Member States / Associated Countries in the co-design of research and innovation strategies and roadmaps that lead to research and innovation initiatives requiring multidisciplinary approaches and skills.
