The project “Cultural Heritage Counts for Europe” will gather, analyze, consolidate and widely disseminate the existing data on the impact of cultural heritage – i.e. the impact on the social, economic, cultural as well as environmental.  It will result in a European mapping of both qualitative and quantitative evidence-based research carried out at the European, national, regional, local and/or sectorial levels.

This research considers the impact of the historic environment. It takes the immovable or built heritage as a starting point, whilst taking into account that cultural heritage is currently considered as a broad concept including the tangible as well as the intangible.

In order to collect as many data and evaluation studies of cases or projects as possible, the consortium invites researchers, academics, heritage operators and stakeholders to make contributions.

More in particular, the consortium is asking for:

  • Studies indicating that immovable cultural heritage (or heritage in general) has a social, cultural, environmental and/or economic impact (studies can thus prove impact on one or more of these areas);
  • Impact assessments of cultural heritage on European, national, regional or local level;
  • Impact assessments published as a report, in books, or as an article in international peer reviewed journals, etc.
  • Contact details for key persons in regard to this topic
  • Websites
  • Etc.

In order to collect as much data as possible on existing impact studies in Europe, we developed a web application where you can fill in the data of a study. When you have knowledge of impact studies, we kindly ask you to complete this web application, especially where it concerns a study in another language than English, French, German, Spanish, Dutch or Polish. Studies can also be sent to us by e-mail (pdfs, word docs, links to webpages, etc.) or by ordinary mail (hard copies).

Please complete the web application on

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/culturalheritagecounts or send us information via sigrid.vanderauwera@bwk.kuleuven.be

KULeuven Faculty of Engineering

Raymond Lemaire International Centre for Conservation (RLICC)

Sigrid Van der Auwera

Kasteelpark Arenberg 1 – bus 02431

B-3001 Leuven (Heverlee)

Please complete the survey or send us the information by 30 June 2014.

We need this information in order to analyze the research already undertaken in Europe on the impact of cultural heritage. This mapping will be presented in a spreadsheet which will allow us to include and analyze relevant data (reference, impact domain, sub-domain, indicators used, summary of main arguments to prove impact, etc.) of these studies. This data will enable us to present an overview of social, cultural, economic and environmental impacts of immovable cultural heritage to develop policy recommendations, to define shortcomings in existing research in Europe and to recommend a future research agenda on the topic for Europe.