How cultural heritage is preserved and enhanced is a major factor defining Europe's identity and its place in the world. Many jobs are also created by the management and promotion of cultural heritage and heritage contributes to sustainable growth and social cohesion. PASCAL, working in cooperation with the European Museums Academy (EMA), is set to make an input to a new project known as SOPHIA which is focussing on heritage and its impact on society.  

The project will focus on issues around high quality interventions in the field of cultural heritage and cultural landscapes and how they can contribute to local communities’ well-being and to the development of sustainable cultural tourism.

The project, scheduled to begin in December 2019, will bring together research communities, heritage professionals, public and private personnel and policy makers at local, regional, national and international levels who are concerned with the impact assessment and quality of interventions in historical environment and cultural heritage sites in Europe. It will explore and analyse the impact of the European Regional Development Funds on heritage. It is expected the project will map existing and emerging problems, practices and policy gaps relating to the impact assessment and the quality of interventions in historical environment and cultural heritage sites in Europe.  

The need for education and awareness raising programmes for specialised communities and the public in general will also be examined. The project also hopes to facilitate the dissemination of best practice, thereby contributing to the development of strategic and integrated European and international policies and interventions. The project will collect, compare, analyse and promote best practices from Europe and beyond, thus offering a major reference for transnational and interdisciplinary networking in this policy area. 

The European Museum Academy, with whom PASCAL already has a cooperation agreement, will be represented by Henrik Zipsane, Director of the European Museums Academy (EMA) in the project and PASCAL will be represented by Learning Cities Coordinator, Rob Mark. The project will be coordinated by the Universita Degli Studi Roma Tre (Rome 3), Italy.

 Further information will be made available in due course.