Applications open for Heritage Place Lab 2024-25

For the Heritage Place Lab 2024-2025, they are looking for 6 World Heritage properties and their site managers, with a particular emphasis on, but not limited to involving World Heritage sites in the Arab States and Asia and the Pacific regions, which were under-represented in the pilot phase. The WHL will act as a knowledge broker, and will endeavour to match World Heritage site managers with a research institution that can respond to the specific knowledge and expertise needed, and initiate long-term research-practice cooperation.

A model for collaboration developed from the pilot phase will be consolidated through this new edition. The HPL 2024-2025 will then work on defining tools that can be used by World Heritage site managers to better address the World Heritage property research needs.

Priorities

• Development pressures
  • World Heritage places are facing development pressures which include, rapid urbanisation, tourism and renewable energy infrastructure development, among others. Means to protect heritage and proactively address development needs will be explored.
• Climate change impacts
  • Climate change and the more frequent extreme weather events and hazards related to it are recognised as one of the main threats to World Heritage properties. However site managers lack the tools to understand and confront the impacts of climate change-related factors at their heritage places. Developing climate action for World Heritage properties will be addressed.
• Legal frameworks and boundaries
  • Boundaries of World Heritage properties need to reflect adequate legal protection for all attributes of Outstanding Universal Value. Revision of boundaries and legal frameworks to respond to development and environmental pressures, as well as making them effective is a challenge that will be discussed.
• Improvement on buffer zone(s)
  • Development pressures and climate change impacts demonstrate the need for an added layer of protection to World Heritage properties. As many properties do not count with a buffer zone(s), designing, planning and implementing buffer zones to support World Heritage management require further research.
• Governance: rightsholders and stakeholders involvement
  • The timely and adequate involvement of rightsholders and other stakeholders into the management system of World Heritage properties, in particular, Indigenous Peoples and local communities, remains a challenge. Methods for balancing power between different managing organisations, for collaborating among different actors in the World Heritage place, and for understanding who needs to be involved will be explored.
• Integrating Indigenous, traditional, and local knowledge into management
  • The integration of diverse knowledge systems, in particular, traditional ways of managing heritage places, into current management planning is a recurrent need. Current challenges such as climate change are requiring other than scientific knowledge systems for developing adequate management measures. Methods for integrating these into the management system and management planning will be explored.

Work Components 

• The HPL will have three work components to be implemented in a maximum of 9 months duration (September 2024-April 2025):
  • A 5-day inaugural workshop to be held in-person between 19 and 23 October 2024 in Beijing, China (excluding travel dates);
  • three 2-hour online mentoring sessions with individual World Heritage sites and two 3-hour online workshops with all World Heritage sites selected;
  • a 5-day closing workshop to be possibly held in-person or in hybrid modalities in April 2025.
• Besides their participation in online and in-person workshops, site management teams should also take into consideration that additional meetings and coordination with the partner research institution will be required. During these time they will work together to strengthen their collaboration, carry out tasks assigned between workshops, and advance in the preparation of research agendas.

Benefits

• Developing sound institutional relationships for long-term engagements between the WHL, research institutions and World Heritage properties.
• Promoting partnerships between site managing and research institutions in order to initiate and/or sustain a long-standing partnership, thereby building bridges between World Heritage properties and research institutions, among them universities.
• Promoting networking and professional growth among collaborating World Heritage places, institutions, researchers and practitioners.

Selection Criteria

• Relevance to the priority issue to be addressed during the Heritage Place Lab, this should be presented succinctly, responding specifically to the issues proposed in the call;
• Present clearly why and what type of research is needed;
• Interest in partnering with a research institution;
• Time to work and commit to the Heritage Place Lab activities;
• Basic knowledge on the implementation of the World Heritage Convention.

For more information, visit ICCROM.