Understanding impact of cultural heritage

The workshop will bridge the subjects of cultural heritage, economic impact and funding, focusing mainly on built cultural heritage. Capitalising on European strategic efforts to assimilate economic reasoning into the cultural heritage debates and vice versa, the workshop is designed to create a discussion framework that recognises the economic impact of cultural heritage investments, is able to measure this impact and hence to demonstrate the leverage effects and return on investment towards funding programmes and financial institutions. To support these discussions, ESPON will introduce latest evidence and methodologies to measure the economic impact of built cultural heritage, supporting these with case studies.

The workshop brings together delegates from several EU Member States, who seek to strategically position cultural heritage on the national agendas. It puts a strategic focus on the next trios of the EU Presidencies. In addition, the workshop will involve officials from the Council of Europe as well as the European Commission’s Directorates-General for Education and Culture and Regional and Urban Policy. The delegates will be invited to share their current national agendas and future visions as well as to exchange about the role of evidence-based investments in cultural heritage.