Final Report Summary - SAUVEUR (Safeguarded Cultural Heritage-Understanding and Viability for the Enlarged Europe)
The 7th European conference on Cultural Heritage research was held in Prague from 31 May to 3 June 2006. The conference was supported under the Sixth Framework Programme (Specific Support to Policy). It was organised in cooperation with the European Commission by the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ITAM) of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic following the earlier conferences in Rome (1997), Aachen (1998), Santiago di Compostela (1999), Strasbourg (2000), Cracow (2002) and London (2004).
The overall aim of the conference was the consolidation and impact assessment of results achieved in EU research projects related to the movable, immovable and infrastructure applied to cultural heritage with a special focus on exploitation and spin-offs of cultural heritage research results and testing the acceptability of new technologies and sustainability approaches by the user community, SMEs, owners, managers, conservationists and restorers of the cultural heritage.
More than 280 participants from 37 countries representing a large number of research and end-user organisations from the public and private sector took part in 210 oral presentations and posters covering the plenary sessions on 'The impact of EU policies on European cultural heritage', 'Coordination of national research and education', and 'Challenges of European cultural heritage' as well as the parallel sessions on the 'movable heritage', the 'immovable heritage', 'Cities, landscapes and villages', and 'Research infrastructure' applied to cultural heritage. The poster exhibition gathered almost 100 posters related to the themes of the parallel sessions, and a 'demonstration salon' was opened to innovative products and processes.
During the conference, attention was especially driven on the fact that there is a wide range of accumulated problems in historic settlements affecting the movable and immovable heritage and related to environmental changes, social impacts, economic issues, growing tourism and inadequate cultural heritage management as well as threats from natural hazards. All these issues require that cultural heritage research continues to develop advanced environmental technologies through the knowledge generated from basic research and the adaptation of scientific developments from other sectors. All stakeholders expressed a strong demand that the cultural heritage be mainstreamed into EU and national policies and research programmes.
The work methodology consisted in traditional call for papers, evaluation and selection procedures performed by an international scientific committee (ISC). The ISC had to evaluate almost 330 abstracts and divide them into thematic groups. The majority of abstracts were accepted in order to show the power of the joint European research, therefore no limitation was posed on the poster session and exhibition. The conference gave enough space for demonstration activities and book display. All three last activities were open to public, which represented one of the innovative features and enhanced impacts of the event.
In the final plenary session, in the ceremonial Spanish Hall of Prague Castle, the conference adopted the Prague concluding message. This document presents the joint standpoint of representatives of major European and international bodies supporting cultural heritage research including the European Commission, UNESCO, Council of Europe, ICOMOS, ICCROM, ICOM, Europa Nostra, Organisation of World Heritage Cities, Getty Conservation Institute; to summarise these conclusions, all stakeholders expressed a strong demand that the cultural heritage be mainstreamed into EU and national policies and research programmes. In this respect, the European institutions should support the incorporation of cultural heritage themes into relevant priorities and tasks of Seventh Framework Programme, and mitigate unintentional negative effects on cultural heritage of other EU legislation in application of the article 151.4 of the EC Treaty. In addition, the value of cultural heritage research revised should be explicitly mentioned in the revised EU sustainability strategy, and the newly established European Research Council (ERC) should consider in its programmes the importance of basic research for cultural heritage.
Beyond the EU, national and regional governments and relevant authorities in Europe should integrate in their research programmes scope for cultural heritage research and support for related research infrastructure, and facilitate ways of overcoming the fragmentation of research for the cultural heritage research community. Finally, public-private partnerships as specific European Technology Platforms (e.g. construction, chemistry) are expected to take into account the specific needs of cultural heritage in order to respond to new and complex challenges as mentioned above, and non governmental organizations should promote further public participation in cultural heritage research which favourably impacts on the environment, energy, sustainability and quality of life.
The presented papers and posters have been gathered into two volumes of conference proceedings containing full oral presentations and posters completed with three pages of extended abstracts. This approach enables to the readers examining on 1 143 pages recent research results achieved during joint EU supported projects and other international cooperation projects initiated by network activities. Special attention has been paid to identification of future research needs and to planning of joint research as well as education activities focused to cultural heritage problems.
Internet presentation of the conference was established at the beginning of 2006 in order to provide information on the conference objectives, important deadlines, venue, programme, conference fees, members of committees, maps, instructions for authors and more. It also served as a main tool for registration and payment. Registration, booking of hotels, conference dinner, excursions and study visits were available through the online forms.
The conference website was regularly updated prior to the conference providing all necessary information. Preliminary programme and all electronic documents needed by participants were available for downloading. List of participants, conference presentations, Prague conference message and posters were made available trough the website after the conference. All material is freely available to wider public and / or professionals.
The internet address of the presentation is http://www.arcchip.cz/ec-conference/. It is under ARCCHIP domain which is maintained by ITAM and ARCCIP Centre of Excellence. It is planned to keep the maintenance of the conference website for at least next five years as a dissemination tool of the project.
The conference conclusions adopted at the closing ceremony has been distributed among the delegates as well as national cultural heritage representatives, the ICOMOS members etc. The e-mailing addresses of professional organisations were utilized. Printed conference proceedings summarise in two volumes all oral presentations and posters with their extended abstracts. They were distributed to all conference participants and are available from the organisers.
The overall aim of the conference was the consolidation and impact assessment of results achieved in EU research projects related to the movable, immovable and infrastructure applied to cultural heritage with a special focus on exploitation and spin-offs of cultural heritage research results and testing the acceptability of new technologies and sustainability approaches by the user community, SMEs, owners, managers, conservationists and restorers of the cultural heritage.
More than 280 participants from 37 countries representing a large number of research and end-user organisations from the public and private sector took part in 210 oral presentations and posters covering the plenary sessions on 'The impact of EU policies on European cultural heritage', 'Coordination of national research and education', and 'Challenges of European cultural heritage' as well as the parallel sessions on the 'movable heritage', the 'immovable heritage', 'Cities, landscapes and villages', and 'Research infrastructure' applied to cultural heritage. The poster exhibition gathered almost 100 posters related to the themes of the parallel sessions, and a 'demonstration salon' was opened to innovative products and processes.
During the conference, attention was especially driven on the fact that there is a wide range of accumulated problems in historic settlements affecting the movable and immovable heritage and related to environmental changes, social impacts, economic issues, growing tourism and inadequate cultural heritage management as well as threats from natural hazards. All these issues require that cultural heritage research continues to develop advanced environmental technologies through the knowledge generated from basic research and the adaptation of scientific developments from other sectors. All stakeholders expressed a strong demand that the cultural heritage be mainstreamed into EU and national policies and research programmes.
The work methodology consisted in traditional call for papers, evaluation and selection procedures performed by an international scientific committee (ISC). The ISC had to evaluate almost 330 abstracts and divide them into thematic groups. The majority of abstracts were accepted in order to show the power of the joint European research, therefore no limitation was posed on the poster session and exhibition. The conference gave enough space for demonstration activities and book display. All three last activities were open to public, which represented one of the innovative features and enhanced impacts of the event.
In the final plenary session, in the ceremonial Spanish Hall of Prague Castle, the conference adopted the Prague concluding message. This document presents the joint standpoint of representatives of major European and international bodies supporting cultural heritage research including the European Commission, UNESCO, Council of Europe, ICOMOS, ICCROM, ICOM, Europa Nostra, Organisation of World Heritage Cities, Getty Conservation Institute; to summarise these conclusions, all stakeholders expressed a strong demand that the cultural heritage be mainstreamed into EU and national policies and research programmes. In this respect, the European institutions should support the incorporation of cultural heritage themes into relevant priorities and tasks of Seventh Framework Programme, and mitigate unintentional negative effects on cultural heritage of other EU legislation in application of the article 151.4 of the EC Treaty. In addition, the value of cultural heritage research revised should be explicitly mentioned in the revised EU sustainability strategy, and the newly established European Research Council (ERC) should consider in its programmes the importance of basic research for cultural heritage.
Beyond the EU, national and regional governments and relevant authorities in Europe should integrate in their research programmes scope for cultural heritage research and support for related research infrastructure, and facilitate ways of overcoming the fragmentation of research for the cultural heritage research community. Finally, public-private partnerships as specific European Technology Platforms (e.g. construction, chemistry) are expected to take into account the specific needs of cultural heritage in order to respond to new and complex challenges as mentioned above, and non governmental organizations should promote further public participation in cultural heritage research which favourably impacts on the environment, energy, sustainability and quality of life.
The presented papers and posters have been gathered into two volumes of conference proceedings containing full oral presentations and posters completed with three pages of extended abstracts. This approach enables to the readers examining on 1 143 pages recent research results achieved during joint EU supported projects and other international cooperation projects initiated by network activities. Special attention has been paid to identification of future research needs and to planning of joint research as well as education activities focused to cultural heritage problems.
Internet presentation of the conference was established at the beginning of 2006 in order to provide information on the conference objectives, important deadlines, venue, programme, conference fees, members of committees, maps, instructions for authors and more. It also served as a main tool for registration and payment. Registration, booking of hotels, conference dinner, excursions and study visits were available through the online forms.
The conference website was regularly updated prior to the conference providing all necessary information. Preliminary programme and all electronic documents needed by participants were available for downloading. List of participants, conference presentations, Prague conference message and posters were made available trough the website after the conference. All material is freely available to wider public and / or professionals.
The internet address of the presentation is http://www.arcchip.cz/ec-conference/. It is under ARCCHIP domain which is maintained by ITAM and ARCCIP Centre of Excellence. It is planned to keep the maintenance of the conference website for at least next five years as a dissemination tool of the project.
The conference conclusions adopted at the closing ceremony has been distributed among the delegates as well as national cultural heritage representatives, the ICOMOS members etc. The e-mailing addresses of professional organisations were utilized. Printed conference proceedings summarise in two volumes all oral presentations and posters with their extended abstracts. They were distributed to all conference participants and are available from the organisers.