Periodic Reporting for period 3 - JHEP2 (Support to the implementation of the Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) of the Joint Programming Initiative on Cultural Heritage and Global Change (JPI CH))
Reporting period: 2019-01-01 to 2019-12-31
The world will continue to change rapidly due to a number of systemic causes, due to globalization, the inversion of private/public life driven by technology and man-made environmental change. European living is urban living, but even this is not immune to change. The rise of populism is a clear indicator that European citizens are bewildered by the pace of change. Cultural heritage is a rock in a storm; it is a touchstone, a reference point for many - though not for everyone. Europe with its wealth of cultural heritage assets and its advanced institutional, organizational and technological systems is capable of demonstrating global leadership in cultural heritage protection and innovation.
Because of the subsidiarity principle of the Treaty of the EU MS, Cultural Heritage is an area of research in which the launch and implementation of the Joint Programming Initiative on Cultural Heritage: a challenge for Europe (JPICH) has the maximum impact in terms of common governance, adoption of a common SRA, management of joint transnational calls, set up of the Heritage Portal and discussion of the Action Programme.
Before the JPICH no previous cooperation of this size has ever existed in cultural heritage, in terms of Countries, the number of public organizations involved and response from researchers. The role played by research in this specific sector is specific because of the interdisciplinary nature of cultural heritage research.
JPICH has the track record and ambition to fill the gap between cultural heritage research in future EU framework programme (FP9) and national research programmes. JPI CH will demonstrate that the heritage economy (consisting of research, development, and services) is underpinned by a heritage industry (consisting of physical, digital and intangible assets) that together add to Europe’s future worth.
As JHEP2 project supports the implementation of the JPICH Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) research will be able to reinforce such a unique and fundamental role and create a pan-European cultural heritage research sector from this fragmented field.
In particular, the main specific objectives for this project after the experience of the JHEP and HERITAGE PLUS projects are to:
- Develop effective and efficient governance of the alignment of the national research and innovation programmes;
- Reinforce common activities on cultural heritage;
- Apply quantitative and qualitative KPIs for monitoring and assessing the JPICH alignment process.
Because of the subsidiarity principle of the Treaty of the EU MS, Cultural Heritage is an area of research in which the launch and implementation of the Joint Programming Initiative on Cultural Heritage: a challenge for Europe (JPICH) has the maximum impact in terms of common governance, adoption of a common SRA, management of joint transnational calls, set up of the Heritage Portal and discussion of the Action Programme.
Before the JPICH no previous cooperation of this size has ever existed in cultural heritage, in terms of Countries, the number of public organizations involved and response from researchers. The role played by research in this specific sector is specific because of the interdisciplinary nature of cultural heritage research.
JPICH has the track record and ambition to fill the gap between cultural heritage research in future EU framework programme (FP9) and national research programmes. JPI CH will demonstrate that the heritage economy (consisting of research, development, and services) is underpinned by a heritage industry (consisting of physical, digital and intangible assets) that together add to Europe’s future worth.
As JHEP2 project supports the implementation of the JPICH Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) research will be able to reinforce such a unique and fundamental role and create a pan-European cultural heritage research sector from this fragmented field.
In particular, the main specific objectives for this project after the experience of the JHEP and HERITAGE PLUS projects are to:
- Develop effective and efficient governance of the alignment of the national research and innovation programmes;
- Reinforce common activities on cultural heritage;
- Apply quantitative and qualitative KPIs for monitoring and assessing the JPICH alignment process.
"For this, the main activities to be implemented with JHEP2 project are 4 correspondings to the different Work Packages:
1. Alignment of national research programmes and activities with JPI cultural heritage
2. Implementation of joint activities including joint calls
3. Monitoring and evaluation (KPI)
4. Coordination and management
In particular, a mapping activity through a questionnaire on the state-of-the-art of regional and national research strategies, programmes and projects applied to Cultural Heritage was delivered.
Related to the implementation of joint activities including joint call, a roadmap for consecutive and focused research calls has been developed according to the principle of variable geometries. Four transnational calls were launched as following in temporal order: on ""Digital Heritage“, on ""Heritage in Changing Environments "", on “Conservation & Protection"" and the last one ongoing ""Identity & Perception"".
Heritage Practice activities have been identified and diverse activities to undertake have been selected. Follow-up actions of high potential have been pinpointed and the International Conference on heritage governance has organized. A survey of (the impact and potential of) cultural heritage case studies have been developed and potential strategies to transform the Heritage Portal into a Knowledge Hub have been explored.
Monitoring and evaluation of JPI CH activities since the beginning of the first CSA JHEP, have witnessed important progress, given the fact that no previous evaluation and monitoring framework existed before for the specific set of activities developed by JPIs. Thus, the monitoring and evaluation activities have always been a mirror of the main interrogations of JPI CH partners, and they enriched each other to achieve progress. It results that monitoring and evaluation activities always remain an open question. More than results, they are several challenges that the JPI CH should answer in the coming years:
- How to better harmonize reporting and evaluation procedures between national institutions, research agencies, organisations and the JPI CH in order to reduce the administrative burden represented by evaluation and monitoring activities, for policymakers, funders as well as for researchers? First progress has been achieved in that direction by defining common impact indicators for the 10 JPIs.
- How to make results, databases and data generated by research projects always more accessible, facilitating the monitoring of JPI CH activities, and the visibility of JPI CH funded projects results? There is a clear need of resources to design and implement dedicated tools (online repositories, upgraded Heritage Portal…) for this.
- How to ensure the sustainability of results and outcomes in order to guarantee the long-term impact of JPI CH activities and funded research, and how to design processes to monitor projects’ impact long after they ended?
- How to demonstrate more efficiently the impact of Cultural Heritage research to policymakers and funders, its gains for the general society, for the global welfare and economy?
These are some of the main avenues to be developed for the coming years.
At the same, the activities foreseen for the Coordination and Management were carried out and a specific deliverable on ‘Communication and Dissemination activities’ with the specific aim to improve the JPICH visibility. A lot of dissemination actions with the aim to diffuse the results and the activities of the JPI CH was performed by the Coordinator. A strong and intensive activity on internationalization and other JPIs cooperation were performed during these months. In particular, the JPICH Coordinator pursued all the opportunities to illustrate the JPICH activities towards the countries not yet involved and in particular towards non-EU Countries."
1. Alignment of national research programmes and activities with JPI cultural heritage
2. Implementation of joint activities including joint calls
3. Monitoring and evaluation (KPI)
4. Coordination and management
In particular, a mapping activity through a questionnaire on the state-of-the-art of regional and national research strategies, programmes and projects applied to Cultural Heritage was delivered.
Related to the implementation of joint activities including joint call, a roadmap for consecutive and focused research calls has been developed according to the principle of variable geometries. Four transnational calls were launched as following in temporal order: on ""Digital Heritage“, on ""Heritage in Changing Environments "", on “Conservation & Protection"" and the last one ongoing ""Identity & Perception"".
Heritage Practice activities have been identified and diverse activities to undertake have been selected. Follow-up actions of high potential have been pinpointed and the International Conference on heritage governance has organized. A survey of (the impact and potential of) cultural heritage case studies have been developed and potential strategies to transform the Heritage Portal into a Knowledge Hub have been explored.
Monitoring and evaluation of JPI CH activities since the beginning of the first CSA JHEP, have witnessed important progress, given the fact that no previous evaluation and monitoring framework existed before for the specific set of activities developed by JPIs. Thus, the monitoring and evaluation activities have always been a mirror of the main interrogations of JPI CH partners, and they enriched each other to achieve progress. It results that monitoring and evaluation activities always remain an open question. More than results, they are several challenges that the JPI CH should answer in the coming years:
- How to better harmonize reporting and evaluation procedures between national institutions, research agencies, organisations and the JPI CH in order to reduce the administrative burden represented by evaluation and monitoring activities, for policymakers, funders as well as for researchers? First progress has been achieved in that direction by defining common impact indicators for the 10 JPIs.
- How to make results, databases and data generated by research projects always more accessible, facilitating the monitoring of JPI CH activities, and the visibility of JPI CH funded projects results? There is a clear need of resources to design and implement dedicated tools (online repositories, upgraded Heritage Portal…) for this.
- How to ensure the sustainability of results and outcomes in order to guarantee the long-term impact of JPI CH activities and funded research, and how to design processes to monitor projects’ impact long after they ended?
- How to demonstrate more efficiently the impact of Cultural Heritage research to policymakers and funders, its gains for the general society, for the global welfare and economy?
These are some of the main avenues to be developed for the coming years.
At the same, the activities foreseen for the Coordination and Management were carried out and a specific deliverable on ‘Communication and Dissemination activities’ with the specific aim to improve the JPICH visibility. A lot of dissemination actions with the aim to diffuse the results and the activities of the JPI CH was performed by the Coordinator. A strong and intensive activity on internationalization and other JPIs cooperation were performed during these months. In particular, the JPICH Coordinator pursued all the opportunities to illustrate the JPICH activities towards the countries not yet involved and in particular towards non-EU Countries."
"The main results of this JHEP2 project for this reporting period are:
• The definition of ""JPI Cultural Heritage Alignment Strategy 2019-2020 "" that engage the countries involved in the JPICH to implement new actions for the alignment process in the next year
• The management of the Digital Heritage call (with a new JPICH country participant) that have
funded 8 projects for 4 million of Euro;
• The management of the Heritage in Changing Environment call (with two new JPICH country
participants) that have funded 5 projects for 3 million of Euro
. The management of the Conservation & Protection call that have funded 10 projects for 7 million of Euro;
• The implementation of training/workshops/schools and a major conference to strengthen cooperation and knowledge transfer.
• Three International Conferences were organized by the JPI CH participants during the period under the umbrella of European Year of Cultural Heritage and as a part of the official programme
• The reinforcement of the cooperation with other JPIs and other EU initiatives such as E-RHIS infrastructure and project as Time Machine"
• The definition of ""JPI Cultural Heritage Alignment Strategy 2019-2020 "" that engage the countries involved in the JPICH to implement new actions for the alignment process in the next year
• The management of the Digital Heritage call (with a new JPICH country participant) that have
funded 8 projects for 4 million of Euro;
• The management of the Heritage in Changing Environment call (with two new JPICH country
participants) that have funded 5 projects for 3 million of Euro
. The management of the Conservation & Protection call that have funded 10 projects for 7 million of Euro;
• The implementation of training/workshops/schools and a major conference to strengthen cooperation and knowledge transfer.
• Three International Conferences were organized by the JPI CH participants during the period under the umbrella of European Year of Cultural Heritage and as a part of the official programme
• The reinforcement of the cooperation with other JPIs and other EU initiatives such as E-RHIS infrastructure and project as Time Machine"